The Eighty-Dollar Champion by Elizabeth Letts

The Eighty-Dollar Champion by Elizabeth Letts

November 1958, New York. Into the rarefied atmosphere of wealth and tradition at the National Horse Show in Madison Square Garden comes the most unlikely of horses--a drab white former plow horse named Snowman--and his rider, Harry de Leyer. They were the longest of all longshots--and their win was the stuff of legend. Harry de Leyer first saw the horse he would name Snowman on a bleak winter afternoon between the slats of a rickety truck bound for the slaughterhouse. He recognized the spark in the eye of the beaten-up horse and bought him for eighty dollars. On Harry's modest farm on Long Island, the horse thrived. But the recent Dutch immigrant and his growing family needed money, and Harry was always on the lookout for the perfect thoroughbred to train for the show-jumping circuit--so he reluctantly sold Snowman to a farm a few miles down the road. But Snowman had other ideas about what Harry needed. When he turned up back at Harry's barn, dragging an old tire and a broken fence board, Harry knew that he had misjudged the horse. And so he set about teaching this shaggy, easygoing horse how to fly. One show at a time, against extraordinary odds and some of the most expensive thoroughbreds alive, the pair climbed to the very top of the sport of show jumping. Reminiscent of the inspiring, against-the-odds success story that made Seabiscuit a bestseller, The Eighty-Dollar Champion tells of the dramatic and inspiring rise to stardom of an unlikely duo, based on the insight and recollections of the Flying Dutchman himself. Their story captured the heart of Cold War-era America--a story of unstoppable hope, inconceivable dreams, and the chance to have it all. Elizabeth Letts' message is simple: Never give up, even when the obstacles seem sky-high. There is something extraordinary in all of us.

Elizabeth Letts is the #1 New York Times bestselling author of The Eighty-Dollar Champion, The Perfect Horse, and two earlier novels, Quality of Care and Family Planning, which won the 2017 PEN Center USA Literary Prize for research nonfiction. She was also a member of the Peace Corps in Morocco as a qualified nurse-midwife. She splits her time between Northern Michigan and Southern California.

SKU	Unavailable
ISBN 13	9780345521095
ISBN 10	0345521099
Title	The Eighty-Dollar Champion
Author	Elizabeth Letts
Condition	Unavailable
Binding Type	Paperback
Publisher	Random House USA Inc
Year published	2012-05-29
Number of pages	368
Cover note	Book picture is for illustrative purposes only, actual binding, cover or edition may vary.