I probably came to Samantha Alexander a bit late to appreciate her: certainly as
far as her Riders series went. I just can’t see the 14 year old heroine and her relationship
with the 19 year old event rider, particularly now, when I am the mother of a nearly
14 year old: the idea of her going out with someone who was 19 would make me spit
tacks. Maybe if I’d read the series when I was fourteen it would have been blissful
wish fulfilment, but I didn’t. The Riding School series I find better -
She wrote 4 series, but nothing as far as I can find, after 2002, unless she is writing
under a different name. Samantha Alexander worked as an “agony aunt” with Horse
and Pony magazine -
The Hollywell Stables Series
Hollywell Stables is a sanctuary for horses and ponies. It’s run by Mel (1 2), and her brother Ross (14), and sister Katie (9), and their lives are a perpetual balancing act between finding money to run the sanctuary, and rescuing what horses and ponies they can.
The covers for this series were shot, I think, at Suzanne’s Riding School. This was the longest running riding school under the same ownership until it closed in 2004. It was started by Suzanne Marczak when she was a teenager in 1939 with 2 horses and 2 ponies, and was then run by her son Julian.
The Riders Series
This follows the adventures of 14 year old Alex Johnson, her 19
year old boyfriend Ash “Flash” Burgess, eventing star, and Alex’s dun pony Barney.
The girl who stars as Alex on the cover is Sally Johnson, who won a competition in Horse and Pony magazine to find a cover girl. The covers were shot at Sandridgebury Stables, by Bob Langrish.
The Riding School Series
This series follows the fortunes of a set of girls at the Brook House Riding School, and tells each of their individual stories.
The Winners Series
Set in the racing world., this series is about Justina Brookes, and her ambition to win the Grand National.
Many thanks to Hannah Fleetwood and Dawn Harrison, without whom these pages would be sad and bald.
Finding the books:
The books are mostly very easy to find, and generally cheap.
Common: Against the Clock, Crossing the Line, Emma, Fame, Flying Start, Trapped, Deceit, The Chase, In The Frame, Jodie, Kate, Peak Performance, Perfect Timing, Race to Glory, Rachel, Racing Start, Revenge, Rising Star, Running Wild, Secrets, Sophie, Steph, Team Spirit, The Chase, The Mission, Trapped, Will to Win, Winning Streak, The Gamble, Winners
Difficult: Breaking the Rules
Samantha Alexander
Bibliography
Flying Start
(Hollywwell Stables 1)
Macmillan 1994, reprinted 1998
The stables is desperately short of money, so Mel, Ross and Katie decide to run a
horse
show. A mysterious note leads them to a starving pony shut in a scrapyard, and
then there’s
Colorado, whose wealthy owner has decided the only solution to his behaviour
is to have
him put down.
The Gamble
(Hollywell Stables 2)
Macmillan 1994
Can the team persuade a world famous star to give a charity concert for the stables?
Rocky finds
that the racing stables keeping his thoroughbred are cheating him, and
he leads the team on a mission
to uncover the truth.
The series in order:
Hollywell Stables
1 Flying Start
2 The Gamble
3 Revenge
4 Fame
5 The
Mission
6 Trapped
7 Runnning Wild
8 Secrets
Riders
1 Will to Win
2 Team Spirit
3 Peak Performance
4 Rising Star
5 In the Frame
6 Against
the Clock
7 Perfect Timing
8 Winning Streak
Winners
1 Racing Start
2 Crossing the Line
3 Breaking the Rules
4 Race to Glory
Riding School
1 Jodie
2 Emma
3 Steph
4 Kate
5 Sophie
6 Rachel
Revenge
(Hollywell Stables 3)
Macmillan 1995
Reprinted as The Chase, Macmillan 1999
The local hunt comes crashing through the yard, with disastrous results. Then, one
of the
Sanctuary’s ponies goes missing.
Fame
(Hollywell Stables 4)
Macmillan 1995
Rocky’s new record has been a sucess, and it brings overnight fame to the sanctuary.
A girl hears them on
the radio, and tells them about a miniature horse locked in
a caravan, but she rings off before they can find
out where it is.
The Mission
(Hollywell Stables 5)
Macmillan 1995
Macmillan, 1999 (cover done at Suzanne’s Riding School)
Mel, Ross and Katie go to a horse sale, and see a mule and a blind pony being loaded
into a
cramped lorry with no food or water. They hide in the lorry to see what will
happen to the ponies,
but unfortunately, the lorry starts with them still in it,
and worse still, it’s headed to France.
Trapped
(Hollywell Stables 6)
Macmillan 1995
Macmillan, 1999 (cover done at Suzanne’s Riding School)
The Hollywell team are collecting signatures for a petition against animal cruelty,
and they hear
a donkey braying. When they investigate, they find him in a deserted
house, but he is not alone.
There is a man with a gun, and they are trapped with
him. Worse still, nobody knows where they
are.
Running Wild
(Hollywell Stables 7)
Macmillan 1995
There’s a Black Beast roaming the local moors -
and the Black Beast is blamed.
Secrets
(Hollywell Stables 8)
Macmillan 1995
The Hollywell team are at their county show, selling merchandise. A horse has a
terrible accident at the
show, and then they find Teddy, crippled and locked in a
garden shed. It looks as if there’s only one person
to blame, and the team have to
find proof before the situation gets out of h and.
Will to Win
(Riders 1)
Macmillan 1996
Alex Johnson owns the 14.2 dun Barney, and she wants to event. Her ambition isn’t
helped when she
antagonises 19 year old Ash Burgess, the star eventer who runs the
stables, nor is it when she lets
Barney career into wheelchair-
of Eric make Ash furious? Eric
says Alex can’t ride, but he will teach her. She takes him up on his offer.
All this
is complicated by the fact that, as her friend Zoe says, “the trouble with this yard
is that there aren’t
enough men, and far too many women.”
Team Spirit
(Riders 2)
Macmillan 1996
Alex Johnson and the person on the yard she loathes most, Camilla Davies, are on
the same team for
the Pony Club One Day Event. Added to this, the slimy Mark Preston
is also now on the yard with his
horse, as Ash is now being sponsored by Mark’s father.
Mark brings far more than his fair share of problems
to the yard.
Peak Performance
(Riders 3)
Macmillan 1997
Joel O’Ryan, another famous eventer, has come to run a course at the local pony club.
Alex is star-
and risks losing Ash, and Eric, but Joel has another agenda rooted
in the events of the past.
Rising Star
(Riders 4)
Macmillan 1997
Ash is giving up eventing and selling his best horse: he is in severe financial
trouble, and it looks like the only
way out. A bitter rival , Jack Landers, has just
arrived from America, and is soaking up any opportunities Ash
might have had. The
one chance Ash has is if he wins Burnley. Alex is determiined he will go, and with
her as
his groom, though the problems with Jack Landers just keep coming.
Hollywell Stables Omnibus 1 (Macmillan 1997)
Hollywell Stables Omnibus 2 (Macmillan
1997)
