Book Review - Rodeo Rocky

Young horse lovers will enjoy reading about the adventures of Kristie Scott and her friend Lisa Goodman. The story moves along at a good pace, and the characters are likable. This would be a fun read for horse lovers in the 9 to 14 year old range. I disliked how horse training and handling were depicted. I hope that readers will remember that this story is fiction and that some of the things described would be dangerous for an experienced adult, much less a child.

Kristie is shocked at the treatment of the horses at a local rodeo. She convinces her mother to buy a stallion she saw in a wild horse race naming him Rodeo Rocky. Kristie decides to turn Rodeo Rockey into a dude string horse but quickly runs into challenges. When Kristie gets Rocky home he quickly hurts another horse. Kristie has to prove that despite his rough beginning, Rocky has a place at the Half Moon Ranch.

The author does a great job of building the suspense and describing the countryside. It made me want to visit this corner of our earth. Jenny Oldfield did a nice job of describing ranch life. She also doesn't candy coat rodeo competitions.

My concern with this book is that the training method and time it takes to train Rodeo Rocky are so very unrealistic. This is pretty common in a lot of horse fiction. I hope that young readers will not believe that it is advisable to take a stallion from the wild and use it on a dude string with only a few weeks training.

I also disliked that the horse was attacked by a coyote. Coyotes can be a threat to chickens and sheep, but they’re no match for a horse. Replace the word 'coyote' with 'cougar', and the scene would be more believable.

Enjoy this book for the adventure. There may be a few parts of the book that gloss over reality, but there's no doubt that what happens is the sort of thing any young horse lover wishes were possible!