The Five-Dollar Horse

While most of the books published by Willow Bend Publishing are fiction, we do offer a few non-fiction titles for young readers (What Does A Police Horse Do? What Does A Police Dog Do?). Now, author Ellen Feld has started developing another mostly non-fiction story. How about a mostly true horse story, with some names changed to protect the innocent?

This new book, tentatively titled The Five-Dollar Horse, is the true story of Rimfire, an amazing Morgan who found his way into the life of Nicholas Feld. Rimmie (CBMF No Exceptions) was the prize in a national essay contest. The contest was run by The Berkshire Morgan Horse Youth Group, and the title of the essay was “Why I Want to Win A Morgan Horse and What I Would Do With It.” Nicholas (age 12 when he entered the contest) worked for several weeks on his essay, and submitted it right before the deadline. A month later, he received a call from the contest organizer telling him he’d won the horse - a beautiful yearling Morgan gelding.

Nicholas and Rimfire quickly formed a special bond and spent many hours both in the show ring and out on the trail. Nick’s dream was to one day show his horse at the ultimate show for Morgans, The Grand National and World Championship Morgan Horse Show. That dream was realized last year when the pair made the long trip to Oklahoma (from Connecticut) and showed in the Classic Pleasure Division. They received a nice ribbon in the Amateur-Owner In-Hand class, while Rimfire and Nick’s mom, Ellen Feld, won the Grand National Saddle Seat Road Hack Finals.

While showing at the Grand National was a dream come true, Nicholas still dreamed of winning a championship at the “Worlds.” Given the incredibly tough competition at the “Worlds,” few people ever have that dream realized, but Nicholas decided to try for it in 2024. At 18, it was the last time Rimfire would make the long trip to Oklahoma. Could they pull off a win in the road hack class?

While Ellen Feld had been planning on writing a story based on Rimfire and Nicholas’s adventure, having the ending tell about “mom” winning with Rimfire just wasn’t the ending that Ellen wanted. Fortunately, Rimfire and Nicholas had an incredible ride in the road hack class, and when the three judges turned in their cards, Nicholas and Rimfire were named the winners! They were crowned the Grand National Saddle Seat Road Hack champions! A perfect ending to an amazing career. Look for this new book in 2025.