Celebrating International Women’s Day
This Women’s History Month, we are celebrating all the women we ride with - the all-female staff here at Equescapes, female guides and outfitters, and all the wonderful women who travel with us - as well as the women who have paved the way for women today.
These books about horses, riding, and travel are a few of my personal favorites. These true stories about adventurous women who defied tradition and the odds continue to inspire me, and I hope they will inspire you, too! Happy reading!
A Lady’s Life in the Rocky Mountains
Isabella Bird
The true story of the travels and adventures of Isabella Bird, an independent and headstrong English aristocrat who left a life of leisure to explore the American west on horseback, defying tradition and the expected roles of an unmarried woman in her time. The book is based upon her colorful letters sent back home to her sister and the account relates the many hardships of the great western frontier, the unique characters she meets, and the incredible natural world she found in the newly settled western territories.
Lady Long Rider
Bernice Ende
The incredible memoir of Bernice Ende, a solitary figure with the daunting goal of traveling from Trego, Montana to New Mexico in a single ride. At the age of 50, Bernice turned south into the unknown and began her first trip on her way to becoming a world-class long rider. Accompanied by her horses and dog named Claire, Ende has logged more than 29,000 miles in the saddle, crisscrossing North America and beyond.
One Hundred and Four Horses
Mandy Retzlaff
This one is a personal favorite, because it hits all three topics of horses, riding, and travel, plus I read it before traveling to Mozambique, and again while I was there, since I had the privilege to be staying and riding with Retzlaffs themselves.
The Retzlaff family owned a horse farm in Zimbabwe, and when political unrest in the country became violent, many white families left the country, leaving their horses with the Retzlaffs. By the time the violence arrived on their doorstep, they had 104 horses, whom they smuggled out of Zimbabwe and into Mozambique, where they now reside. An incredible tale of bravery and resilience.
Wild Horses of the Summer Sun
Tory Bilski
The author tells the story of falling in love with Icelandic horses, having seen a photo on the internet, which leads her to embark on a magical summer trip to this enchanted island, with a group of ladies on what becomes a yearly pilgrimage. She perfectly captures the nature and uniqueness of these special horses.
Rough Magic
Lara Prior-Palmer
What I love most about this book, which describes the experience of competing in the world’s longest and toughest endurance race across 1,000 km of the Mongolian Steppe, is that when Lara signed up for the race, she had no idea what she was doing, which is often how I feel when embarking on new adventures. Her riding experience was limited at best and she had never before ridden endurance, but she jumped in with both feet and took off for Asia. She went on to become the youngest competitor to ever win the race, at 19, and the first female - not meaning to spoil it, she tells the audience right from the start.
Fearless
Chloe Phillips-Harris
Fearless recounts Chloe's childhood growing up on a run-down farm in a remote corner of New Zealand, with the odds stacked against her, and shares her life-long dedication to animals that has led her to train wild stallions and help save neglected working animals, travelling to some of the most remote and diverse places on the planet - all of which prepared her to overcome unimaginable challenges during a ride like no other.
West with the Night
Beryl Markham
True stories of a remarkable woman in Kenya in the 1940s. A bush pilot, a horsewoman and racehorse trainer, and an adventurer, Beryl Markham is the stuff legends are made of. She was the first person to fly solo across the Atlantic from east to west, hence the name of the book. Between getting attacked by a lion as a child and scouting for elephants for hunting parties in the middle of the century, her stories are remarkable. While the book isn’t entirely focused on horses, they were a significant element throughout her life, and figure heavily into her stories. The Splendid Outcast is another of her books, a series of short stories, which also involve horses, aviation, and adventure, in mid-century Kenya.
More by and about Beryl Markham
The Splendid Outcast is another collection of short stories by Beryl Markham, who passionately loved horses horses, flying, Africa, and men, perhaps in that order. While her wildly adventurous life may seem too unlikely to be true, Mary Lovell’s biography of her, Straight on till Morning, sheds light on the truth of this remarkable woman’s remarkable life.
Half-Broke Horses
Jeannette Walls
I'm always inspired by tales of brave, strong, independent women in times when none of those things were considered desirable or acceptable traits for ladies. My own experiences riding in Arizona and New Mexico give me an even better appreciation for some of the obstacles Lily Casey faced just from her environment, where she began helping her father break horses at the age of 6, and rode her trusty steed Patches across lengthy and inhospitable stretches of desert. This is a great (true) story of gumption, grit, perseverance, resilience, and one badass cowgirl!
More by Jeannette Walls
While Walls’ other work is less related to horses and riding, they are still excellent reads. The Glass Castle is a family memoir similar to Half-Broke Horses, a tale of resilience and redemption, focused on Walls’ own childhood, her brilliantly charismatic but wildly alcoholic father, and her free-spirited mother (the daughter of Half-Broke Horses’ Lily Casey).
The Silver Star is a work of fiction, though the resilience in the face of adversity of the characters is clearly reflective of characters in the author’s own life and childhood.
Equestrian Adventuresses Series
Krystal Kelly + contributing authors
This heartwarming anthology is full of inspirational stories written by a variety of authors and riders worldwide.
