Wonderful book, had me in tears and laughter . ( )

I bought this book because the title seemed to refer to Gerald Durrell. It turns out that the animals in this book are all dogs and horses. I can get interested in almost any animals except dogs and horses, so I gave up. ( )

Who is Clare Balding & why the heck should any of us care? She's a BBC sports presenter, was an amateur jockey, & grew up with race horses. I still don't really care, but her autobiography is told through her interactions with the more memorable horses & dogs she knew & it was excellent. There were quite a few & they're real animals - people to her (as they are to me), but animal people. She captivated me in the first chapter with our similarities growing up on a farm. She learned to walk with the help of her dog & drank out of the same water dish occasionally. (My dogs are all good at eating off my fork & always finish off my milk. They're not really begging, just attentively waiting for me to share.) Kids can do far worse than a loyal dog as a role model. I had one, too.

There was some skipping around in time due to the way the story was presented, but each chapter was well laid out & the animal characters made them hold together well. The joys, love, & loss were very real. From outward appearances, we have nothing in common, yet she is obviously a kindred spirit.

Her father was one of the top race horse trainers in England, even had some of the Queen's horses, so she met a lot of interesting people in intimate detail & had a lot of great riding opportunities, not to mention a love for all things equestrian. Her story provides a great personal view of that life, although I was a bit lost with her education. Their grades & such are far different than ours.

The only downside was her constant references to how her family put her down, yet she never seemed inclined to get back at them. It was a rather ugly thread that seemed too lopsided & undermined the veracity of her story somewhat. Not a huge deal.

If you want the bare facts of who she is now (this book concentrates on her early life into college) the Wikipedia page fleshes it out.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Clare_Balding
( )

Very interesting. I knew practically nothing about her before. ( )

I enjoyed this autobiography much more than I anticipated and should have realised that the always-prepared and topic-thoroughly-researched Ms Balding would take the same approach to her writing.

This was a joy to read, I loved learning more about the racing world and sympathised with every animal story detailed. As ever with these things, Ms Balding has worked hard to 'suddenly' become a national treasure and it was nice to read her back-story. Each chapter flows nicely and all the little odds and ends you wonder about [as you're reading] are tied off. ( )