Books from Toy Saint

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From the colourful world of international horse racing comes a gripping saga of love, ambition and the unswerving conviction of an unforgettable woman. Young Joanna Kingsford shows the same passion and strength of spirit that have made her father, the legendary Charlie Kingsford, one of Australia's greatest trainers. But, torn between his conscience and the demands of his pampered socialite wife, Charlie refuses to let his daughter near the horses she loves.

The Horse Whisperer

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In the still of a snow-covered morning in upstate New York, a girl out riding her horse is hit by a 40-ton truck. Though horribly injured, both thirteen-year-old Grace Maclean and her horse Pilgrim survive. But the impact on their lives and the lives of those who love them is devastating. Grace is the only child of a prominent New York magazine editor, Annie Graves, and her lawyer husband Robert. In a way which none of them at first understands, their destiny comes to depend upon Pilgrim's. so mutilated and traumatised is he that even the vet who saved his life now wishes he hadn't. Annie refuses to have him destroyed, sensing that if she does, something in Grace will die too. She hears about a man in Montana, a 'whisperer' who is said to have the gift of healing troubled horses. Abandoning her job, Annie sets off across the continent with Grace and Pilgrim to find him. The man's name is Tom Booker and he lives on the Rocky Mountain Front, a place of daunting beauty. Here, under the massive Montana sky, all their lives are changed forever.

The Horse and His Boy

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When Shasta, the son of a local Calormene fisherman, Arsheesh, overhears Arsheesh planning to sell him for a slave, he decides to run away to the far North, a place he has always dreamed about. Knowing that he will not get far on his own, he intends to steal a warhorse, but the horse, because it is a Talking Horse from Narnia, in the end steals him. The unlikely pair soon meet some reluctant travelling companions: Aravis, a high-born girl escaping a forced marriage, and Hwim, another Talking Horse

Aunts Aren't Gentlemen

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On doctor's orders, Bertie Wooster retires to sample the bucolic delights of Maiden Eggesford. But, his idyll is rudely shattered by Aunt Dahlia who wants him to nobble a racehorse. Similar blots on Bertie's horizon come in the shape of Major Plank, the African explorer, Vanessa Cook, proud beauty and "moulder of men" and Orlo Porter who seems to have nothing else to do but to think of sundering Bertie's head from his body.

Field of 13

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There's a bomb scare at Kingdom Hill racecourse, where failed conman "Tricksy" Wilcox watches his dreams blown to kingdom come... At Cheltenham's glittering National Hunt Festival, protocol is rocked as a love-struck owner falls madly in love with her jockey... There is passion - and revenge - the glorious Kentucky Derby... ...and then ten other tantalizing stories to hold you enthralled from the starting gates to the finish.

Horse Heaven

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Spanning two years on the circuit, from Kentucky and California to New York and Paris, Horse Heaven puts us among trainers and track brats, horse-obsessed girls, nervy jockeys, billionaire breeders and restless track wives. Here is the trainer of dazzling integrity and his opposite, a wicked prince of the track headed for still another terrible swindle; here are the gamblers and hangers-on.

Australian Winners

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Stars of the Australian racing scene rated for horseracing fans. Summaries compiled by author and racing historian, Warwick Hobson from AAP and Racing Services Bureau statistics.

A Sporting Nation

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This timely publication will appeal equally to the serious sports enthusiast and mainstream reader. A Sporting Nation celebrates Australia's sporting history by drawing on the National Library of Australia's extensive collection of books, journals and newspapers, and its pictorial, manuscript and ephemera holdings. Its main text comprises excerpts from the Library's oral history recordings, with additional features by Olympian Marlene Mathews, and Eric Rolls and Marion Halligan.

They're Racing!: The Story of Racing in Australia & New Zealand

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They're Racing! brings together over 200 years of stories and stars, personalities and pictures, in a fascinating pageant of fact and colour. All the four-legged heroes are here, from Archer, Carbine, Phar Lap and Tullock, to Kingston Town, Manikato and Might And Power. And their riders - names like Roy Higgins, Tom Corrigan, Darby Munro - plus racing identities like bookmaker Sol Green, trainer Gai Waterhouse, and perhaps the greatest racing man of them all, Bart Cummings. In these packed pages you'll find words by top sportswriters of the past and present, a touch of scandal as well as many of the great paintings and wonderful photographs that our long history of horse-racing has evoked. This is the complete story of Australian racing.

The Penguin Book of the Horse

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What is it about horses? Why have we mythologised them so? Apollo and his horse-drawn chariot racing across the sky; unicorns with their supposedly magical powers; Pegasus and his mighty wings . . . From a wealth of material by writers from around the world Candida Baker has drawn together a collection of pieces in praise of the horse. Included here are old favourites such as Anna Sewell, the awesome intimacy of Monty Roberts and the haunting images of Nicholas Evans. This anthology will appeal to all riders, readers, and lovers of the horse.

The Penguin Book of Australian Sporting Anecdotes

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As a nation we could be called sports-mad. Our fascination with the 'game' and the players is endless. Now, in one handy volume, seven of our most highly regarded sports writers have gathered stories, quotes and anecdotes from out best-loved sports including cricket, Australian Rules football, horse racing, tennis and more.

Walk a Mile in My Shoes

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This is the inspiring boots-and-all story of a Queensland bush pioneer who flourished against all the odds.
Tom Collins was born in 1912 and by the age of five he had his first job as horse-tailer for his father's itinerant draught-horse team. As a teenager he was paralysed for years after a horse-riding accident, but recovered to become an axeman, a banana-grower, a Harley-Davidson rider, a dunny-can carter, a grader-driver, a dairy-worker, a barber and the proud owner of a caravan beauty salon in Central Queensland.

Great Racehorses

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For hundreds of years men have attempted to breed the perfect racehorse, the one that will be outstandingly greater than all the others of its generation. This book, with Julian Wilson's personal selection of the greatest racehorses ever, is a chronicle of a number of those men's successful achievements; of the one horse in 10,000 that stands head and shoulders above the field. With profiles of Desert Orchid, Cigar, Shergar and Lammtarra amongst many others, every entry also includes the blood-lines of the horse.