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Author: Evans Polly

Color: Multicolor

Format: roughcut

Package Dimensions: 20x208x240

Number Of Pages: 320

Release Date: 29-04-2008

Details: Product Description

The stampeding true story of one woman’s journey from timorous equestrian novice to wildly whooping cowgirl—a madcap ride through Argentina that will fascinate horse lovers, travelers, and armchair adventurers alike.

As a girl, Polly Evans dreamed about learning to ride—and in her mid-thirties the obsession returned. Determined to finally bite the bullet and saddle up, she set off for Argentina, home of the nomadic gaucho whose spirit still gallops across the plains. In this sprawling country, six-year-olds travel to school on horseback. How difficult could it be?

As she learns to sit astride a horse without falling off and befriends the marvelous creatures around her, Polly leaps into the sights and sounds of Argentina past and present: a hair-raising mystery involving Evita Perón becomes a parable about women, politics, and religion; a tango performance in Buenos Aires an occasion for both sorrow and rejoicing. From wine tasting in the Andes to exploring the legendary Perito Moreno Glacier, from investigating the myth of the gaucho to discovering her Welsh roots in Patagonia, Polly takes us along for an exhilarating, unforgettable ride as she finally lives out her dream—at a trot, a canter, and a gallop.

Review

“A jolly romp of a read.” —
Sunday Telegraph,UK

“Breezy, lighthearted.”—
Kirkus Reviews

About the Author

Polly Evans studied modern languages at Cambridge University, where she learned a little about Spanish and a little more about men. The hours of hard research she poured into these two subjects, plus a four-year stint at Hong Kong’s largest weekly magazine, inspired her first three books, all available from Delta. Polly now lives in London, where she is at work on the tale of her attempts to learn to ride in horse-mad Argentina.

Excerpt. © Reprinted by permission. All rights reserved.

Chapter OneThe Starting Gate

As a child, I longed to ride a horse. My girlish dreams were peppered with fantasies of bright red horse-show rosettes and deliciously exciting grooming sessions in which I would brush my pet’s sleek coat till it gleamed like polished ebony.

I devoured the adventures of Black Beauty. I was given an old hardcover copy of Jill’s Gymkhana with a sand-colored binding that must have been bought at a tag sale somewhere, and I read and reread it with avid enthusiasm. After all, if Jill had managed to happen upon enough money to buy herself a pony, why shouldn’t I? I gazed enraptured through National Velvet. But those Grand National fences seemed nothing to the hurdle I faced: convincing my parents of my need.

For years I pestered them. I wanted riding lessons. They thought the piano more suitable. I still wanted riding lessons. But ballet was so much more ladylike. I wanted a horse. Where would it live? I thought the backyard would do fine. Who would look after it? I would, of course. Who was going to pay for it? Well, they could couldn’t they?

But realistically they could not, and so the horse was never forthcoming. Christmases and birthdays came and went, and I never unwrapped so much as a My Little Pony. Not even my Barbie doll was given a horse. Barbie, instead, received a bathtub and a wedding dress—clean, wholesome, morally upright playthings.

The time went by and the obsession died. Through my teenage years, I don’t suppose I’d have been seen dead around a horse. In my twenties, I developed an unhealthy preoccupation with swimming and biking and running. It wasn’t until I was in my mid-thirties that the niggling little thought began to trot around inside my head once more: Wouldn’t it be fun to learn to ride?

But where should I go for lessons? I didn’t much like the idea of plodding around a London park for ninety dollars an hour. And why spend week after week joggling around a riding-school ring attempting to master the very British rising trot, when there was a world out there with wide-open spaces to gallop through, places where nobody cared if my heels were do