Description
Old Mama’s Story
by Milly Hunt Porter
Milly Hunt Porter gives us a rare glimpse of subtle and not so subtle changes in the world of communication over the past fifty years – communication between people and horses, and people and people. Her first work was the editing of Think Harmony With Horses written through the eyes of foremost horseman, Ray Hunt. Her poignant poetry in Hey Elko is a collection that spans a time of personal healing. And, of course, there is True Unity, a description of the ethereal understanding between man as expressed by master of the art, Tom Dorrance.
One wonders whether The Horse Gods is truly fiction – or is it a longing of life’s search for itself. A lesson of ethics and love set to a background beginning on the wild 1950’s Elk County range in Nevada to the 1990’s San Joaquin Valley in California as seen through the eyes of a flashy little sorrel mare.
The story will be enjoyed, remembered, and re-read by readers from nine to ninety, the characters will live on well past the last paragraph and, most of all, the author will become your best friend.
The Horse Gods opens with an aged mare marking time on an early Fall afternoon. Half dozing, she flicks her tail at the pesky flies waiting patiently for her last foal and her owner’s son to return from a most prestigious horse show. As the waiting continues, the mare relives her past, the pages in her memory book turn slowly from the time she ran free on the high desert of the untamed Nevada range and how dramatically that changed when she was roped by a determined rancher.
Each new person who enters her world leaves her with a definite impression as to that person’s character. Her observations are surprisingly insightful and one will learn to read expressions of deep emotion, not through the pages of this book, but my looking beyond the written word and into their own heart and soul.
The pages of our little mare’s memory book take unexpected twists and turns spread over a quarter of a century of horse and human history. And although times change, it becomes crystal clear to readers the importance of patience and understanding between human and horse, and human and human, are utmost in our journey through life.
The Horse Gods is an endearing tale that takes the reader on a thirty-plus-year journey, told through the mind of an aged mare. It touches on many of the theories that influenced the horse industry from the mid-1950’s into the late 1980’s
The Horse Gods is Milly’s first work of fiction.
5 1/4″ x 8 1/4″ soft cover, 264 pages
Previously she edited two books, that explore the horse-human relationship. In 1978 she edited Think Harmony With Horses by Ray Hunt and in 1987 she edited True Unity by Tom Dorrance
In between these projects she completed Hey Elko, a collection of original verse inspired by the city and county of Elko, Nevada