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'Horse Heaven' by Jane Smiley

Making hay at the races: Horse Heaven

Sunday, April 30, 2000

By Pohla Smith, Post-Gazette Staff Writer

	Horse Heaven By Jane Smiley Alfred A. Knopf $26.00

In time to get you in the mood for planning your Kentucky Derby party come two new novels set in the world of high-stakes thoroughbred racing. They’re done so accurately, too, something that can’t always be said of a lot of racing fiction written by people who never have worked in the industry.

That does not mean both are great reads for anyone with an affection for horses or who has a simple fascination with the “sport of kings.”

“Horse Heaven,” the latest from Jane Smiley, is another major work from the author of the Pulitzer Prize-winning “A Thousand Acres.”

Although it takes real concentration to follow the huge cast of heroes, villains and horses that appear through 561 pages, three continents and two full years in racing, it’s worth the effort. The writing is beautiful, and the characters are compelling, especially those of the horses.

“Keeneland,” at 270 pages, reads very quickly, but that may be part of the reason it is unsatisfying. Again, there is pretty writing, this time by relatively unknown Alyson Hagy, a short-story writer turned novelist. But the plotting and characters are thin and immature.

Lots of things happen in this book, which is set on the backside of Keeneland in Lexington, Ky., one of the world’s most beautiful racetracks. But there is neither understanding nor explanation of why the protagonist, exercise rider Kerry Connelly, is so often the victim of swindles and fistfights and bad relationships. There’s even less reason to worry about their effect upon her.

Connelly is good on and with horses, plays a terrific game of poker and has the sense to leave an abusive husband. None of those things, however, is enough to make her likable or, at least, to offset her flaws.

For all her insight into her marriage, she still falls victim to the next handsome face that comes her way; she fails to accept the help of true friends; and she blunders through her days swinging her fists like a guest on a trashy TV talk show.

Yep, she does save her estranged husband and her favorite horse from the bad guys, but so what? Connelly still is little fun to be around.

“Keeneland” reads like an overly long short story or the outline for a screenplay.

Almost every character in “Horse Heaven” has a flaw or two -- especially the horses we follow from yearlings through their 3-year-old seasons -- and not all of them have redeeming features. Smiley understands people, and she understands horses. Her affection for both is palpable.

To this reviewer, who covers horse racing for the Post-Gazette, thoroughbred racing is the ultimate democracy -- rich and poor, powerful and powerless, all trying to avoid stepping in horse manure as they root for their big horses to come in.

Smiley shows them all, from the Irish horsewoman too caring for her own good to the crooked trainer who, much to his chagrin, finds God and discomfort with his previous ill treatment of horses.

There is the young jockey with the gentle hands necessary to become a great rider; the rich, bored wife who finds meaning in life and marriage when she takes over managing one of her family’s horses; a horse-crazy little girl who can handicap races with the best; and a rich breeder who finds real love in late middle age.

There even is a “horse communicator,” who conspires with a retired racehorse to make a fortune at the windows and to get him back home to France, and a rap star like short-time horse owner M.C. Hammer who leads a girlfriend into a more permanent affair with racing.

Most of the equine characters are, at the beginning, yearlings that were bred and nurtured with such great expectations. In the real world of thoroughbred racing, few of those babies reach the very top, and so it is with this group.

Another equine star of this book is an aging racehorse slowly dropping from the allowance ranks -- the middle class of racing -- to claiming races, the bred and butter of the industry. Despite the affection and good intentions of many, he seems destined for the slaughterhouse until the placing of one fortuitous phone call.

Though there is a wrenching track accident early in the book, Smiley spares the main equines from suffering any heartbreaking mishap. Everyone loves happy-ended shaggy dog -- or horse -- stories.