Finding My Distance: A Year in the Life of a Three-Day Event Rider

By Julia Wendell

Finding My Distance: A Year in the Life of a ThreeDay Event Rider chronicles author Julia Wendells trials in her life and sport over the course of four seasons. Like the horseback riding competitions... This description may be from another edition of this product.

• Format: Paperback
• Language: English
• ISBN: 0981751903
• ISBN13: 9780981751900
• Release Date: January 2009
• Publisher: Pathway Book Service
• Length: 401 Pages
• Weight: 1.40 lbs.
• Dimensions: 9.3" x 1.0" x 6.0"

Customer Reviews

Zen and the art of horse maintenance

(A longer version of this review appears in the "book" category at AlleghenyAlmanac.com) Thirty-five years ago, a philosopher got down to the nitty-gritty of mechanics and wrote "Zen And The Art of Motorcycle Maintenance: An Inquiry Into Values." The unusual book by Robert Pirsig was written as a novel but was basically a memoir that sold five million copies. Wendell's unusual memoir published this year is also an inquiry, but this time the narrative is delivered through the filter of an accomplished poet and instead of detailing the minutiae of two-wheeled rockets it is about the four-legged variety. The juxtaposition of learned literature and nuts-and-bolts by Pirsig now has an addition to this type of genre. Rather than contemplating something as elusive as Truth, Wendell picks one aspect of life, Victory (paradoxically, a word that never appears in the book), and gives us its anatomical details as perhaps no one but a poet could ever do. Back in 1974, you didn't need to know the difference between a cam-shaft and a carburetor to enjoy Pirsig's book, nor do you now need to know the difference between a horse's hock and a coffin bone to profit from Wendell's tome. "This book is not just about the sport of eventing," Julia Wendell announces in her tell-all diary of an amateur competitor in a dangerous sport that is based on military cavalry traditions. It's for those who have "committed themselves to becoming the best they could be in the face of many obstacles, real and imagined." The title, "Finding My Distance" is a technical term which refers to the perfect compromise of vertical speed and horizontal power needed to successfully navigate hurdles on horseback. In "eventing" the horse doesn't really know when the next fence is coming up or how high it is. Somehow the rider instantaneously signals this critical information to her equestrian partner. Or else.

Finding My Distance: A Year in the Life of a Three-Day Event Rider

I saw the world in a different life than it is possible for me to live.

Julia Wendell's done it again...

"Finding My Distance" is a wonderful story about the trials and tribulations of learning a new sport late in life. Ms Wendell captures life on a farm and life with horses in a fresh and honest way. She does not sugarcoat her struggles, but rather, she writes in a way that makes the reader relate to what she is going through. This is not a book for horse lovers alone. People who realize that any domesticated animal is our guide and teacher through life, and people who pick up something new late in the game, will laugh, cry and nod their heads in agreement to the words on the pages of this book.