For those interested in vintage young reader books–there is a copy of Casey Jones Rides Vanity by Marion Holland up for bid on shopgoodwill.com . It is a darling book, good message, the characters can actually ride, very nice, accurate illustrations. And above all, rare.
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I loved “The Perfect Distance”. One of my favorite books, really. I loved the story line and the setting.
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What did you think of the author changing the ending in recent versions?
Yeah, the author even wrote a note about it. I don’t want to spoil it but in the original version, the head trainer is a much worse person. In the new version, his significant wrongdoing is cleaned up. The author said the change was made to reflect the current state of the horse world.
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@WavyRider, I had no idea that the book had been revised. When did that occur? I wonder why the author made that change.
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OMG, I had (and loved) that book as a kid!
Wasn’t the Arabian call Shantih? And there were a couple of shaggy ponies (Shetlands? Highlands?), one of which was named Bramble…
See, I can remember the horse names long after everything else is forgotten! 
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Yes, Shantih. Nobody can agreeon how it is pronounced.
The two Highlands were Bramble and Punch.
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Wow. The new version SUCKS. I have posted screen shots from the last chapter to compare. This is the start and end of the chapter - what Rob asks Francie to do, and how he reacts.
SPOILERS!
Old version:
New version:
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Well, that’s just an insipid sort of ending.
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Maybe all y’all can help me find a book I read in 7th grade. It was an older book, written in the 40s or 50s. It’s about a family that raises palomino Saddlebreds and rides in the Rose Parade. I can’t remember the title and searches haven’t turned up anything. The farm may have been called Santa Ynez? Or that name figures in it somehow. It’s a teen fiction story, along the lines of Star Spangled Summer or Golden Soverign, from that era. Hopefully someone on here can help!
I feel like I’ve read this one but I’m drawing a blank.
I remember a short story similar to this in a collection of “Horse Stories for Girls” or something like that. I will have to look when I get home what the name of the story was. Yes, I still have the book…
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Here is the book I remember with short stories. I think Fiesta Parade was that story.
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I recognize that book cover 
so maybe that’s what I was thinking of.
Totally agree. It took most of the bite out of the story. I get why she did it but I don’t think it did the story any favors.
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I read a book not long ago, although it was marketed for adults it was more YA fiction and someone should have fact checked the story. It was about some girl who lost a horse in a trailer accident; mom and her move to a horse farm (of course), she starts to ride again (eventing) with the trainer. Trainer barely knows her and not a week after working with her enters her in Prelim at a horse trial taking place in two weeks! Suspend reality here. No moody stable boy but a lot of BS that anyone who knows anything about horses and showing could spot a mile away. I started marking them down in the margins.
Worst horse fiction - Riders. I wanted to slap that girl, Helen? for being a spineless twit. Letting that ego maniacal idiot treat her so badly.
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One thing I really love about Jean Slaughter Doty’s books is the gritty realism with which they portrayed the horse world (The Monday Horses, The Crumb, Dark Horse). I wish they’d bring out all of her books in Kindle format. Unfortunately, the ones they did (Summer Pony and Winter Pony) were with simplified language and themes for younger readers. In Doty’s books, I also loved learning about different aspects of the horse world that are no longer practiced (from tack to class requirements).
I love Kim’s books, but I am not a fan of changing books to suit the sensibilities of changing times.
I highly recommend Jane Badger’s reprints of old pony books, which she leaves intact. It’s an interesting history lesson (for me) to see changing attitudes of what’s good horsemanship, even if some of them make me uncomfortable. (In Six Ponies, six kids are given green horses they need to school and “educate,” to learn about horse-training and honestly, some of the stuff they get up to is pretty hair-raising.)
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Was that one of the books by one of the Pullein-Thompson sisters? I read a bunch of their books on Open Library a year or so ago.
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