SHARING WHAT IT MEANS TO BE HORSE CRAZY
New York Times reporter and Pulitzer Prize finalist Sarah Maslin Nir delivers a powerfully written blend of memoir and journalistic craft in her new book, Horse Crazy: The Story of a World and a Woman in Love with
an Animal, coming out on August 4.
“It’s an unusual horse book in that it’s my coming of age story through the lens of the horses I’ve met throughout my life,” says Nir of her book. “It’s not just the pony I rode when I was 2. It’s the Senegalese horses that I found when I was covering terrorism in West Africa. It’s the rare Indian Marwari horses that I rode when I was reviewing spas in Rajasthan and then became obsessed with and tried to find one myself in America. And it’s the horses owned by the Black cowboys I worked for in Harlem when I was a teenager, and how it all told me their story, and in doing so, told me my own.”
A MASTERFULLY WOVEN MEMOIR
Nir uses her investigative talents to mine the experiences of a horse-crazy childhood, from Breyer model horses to Misty of Chincoteague. She explores the connection between horse and human through far-flung and unexpected corners of the world, interwoven with her own personal narrative of a life with horses. She says Horse Crazy is a book for everyone.
“Who hasn’t seen a horse and felt its tug on their heart? The horse world is exclusive in some ways, but the love of horses is deeply inclusive. And horses themselves are. So I think this book is for anyone who has ever looked into their big amber eyes.”
For almost a decade, Nir kept her horse obsession quiet on the job, lest she not be taken seriously. But a group of female reporter friends that she calls the Old Girls Club encouraged her to pursue her passion project.
“They said, you know, if you’re passionate about something, passion is all that matters,” says Nir. “That’s what speaks to people. That’s what we do for a living. Whatever we’re covering, it’s about passion. And that really got me thinking that this thing that takes up so much of my life, that I never talk about in New York City, is my passion, and I should share it, because passion always resonates.”
As Nir’s reporting took her all over the world, she would always seek out the horses afterward, fusing her passion for horses with her reporter’s instinct to seek out the story.
“As I followed the story with my notebook through the barns of the world, I became curious about so many things,” she says. “I have a Dutch
Warmblood, Trendsetter. And I became curious: how did Trendsetter get here? He’s from Holland!
So, I actually flew in the belly of a 747 with nine Dutch Warmbloods as a groom exporting them from Holland in the cargo hold to understand that.”
GETTING PERSONAL
With her background in journalism, Nir was not used to writing about herself. Through the process of writing her book, a deeper understanding of horses led her to an important realization about herself, and what horses give us, that she shares in Horse Crazy.
“As a Jew, the daughter of a Holocaust survivor, growing up in New York City, I came to the sport as an outsider, and that really plagued me,” she explains. “So much of my compulsion to be the best at it and to be deeply part of it was about passing and assimilating. And in the end, I realized that I didn’t have to, that horses loved me just as I was. And that’s the gift they give us: that they don’t have any expectations for us. I wish I could say we gave it back to them in the same measure.”
Nir also interviewed natural horsemanship trainer Monty Roberts for the book. Roberts told her that the language of the horse is to find a safe place to be.
“That’s the only question they want answered,” says Nir. “And that’s all horses ask of us. [Horses] ended up being my safe place. And I realized I didn’t have to change to be theirs.”
RECOVERING FROM COVID
Nir reveals how the healing presence of horses has helped after contracting COVID-19 in early March while covering New York’s first hotspot in New Rochelle. She then had to go through a lengthy recovery and quarantine.
“I rented an apartment on a Standardbred farm just so I could be near horses because it made me feel better,” she says. “Horses bring me peace.”
Nir competes in amateur-owner hunters, and her own three horses reside on a nearby farm in Whitehouse, NJ. She believes horses can help us through these times.
“You don’t need to meditate when you’re with a horse,” she explains. “A horse is meditation. I think they’re deeply valuable at a time like this—not just for the people privileged enough to own them and be with them. [Riding] is a rarified sport that can exclude people, but horses themselves don’t, and I think that’s important to remember.”
ALL ABOUT INCLUSION
Nir says horses also offer a powerful message about inclusivity.
“As we’re seeing the protests for Black Lives Matter, you’re seeing all these Black cowboys,” she says. “One in four cowboys in the American West were actually Black, and their story has been erased by the white writers of history. In my book, I have a whole chapter about searching for them, and the people who are writing their story back into history. So horses were never exclusive.
“Horses don’t [care] about who you are,” she adds. “They just want you to be calm and give them carrots. Horses are for everybody.”
In an online review of Horse Crazy, a reader who had never been able to own a horse described how she felt that she had been lent some of Nir’s four-legged beauties through reading the book.
“Even saying it gives me goosebumps,” says Nir. “That’s exactly what I hoped, that I could share what horses have shared with me.”
Horse Crazy is available on Amazon and other online book retailers.