Big Nate in the Zone

November 1, 1999
Martino's luminous account of her lifelong love affair with horses is a moving, fiercely lyrical spiritual autobiography. Growing up on a California ranch, she learned to love horses from her Brooklyn-born Italian-American father ("The horses are blessed, chosen by God," he whispered to her when she was four), and from her Native American mother, in whose Osage traditions horses left deep tracks. Horses, "four-legged spirits that grace the grass," teachers of patience, balance, courage, trust and cooperation, are trail markers on Martino's inner journey. At age 19 she trained at the Vale, England's tough equestrian academy. At 28, the ghost of her father, who'd been dead several years, haunted a barn and was seen by two witnesses. Martino brought back from the brink and restored to health Belle, a gray mare whose cruel owner had beaten, isolated and starved her. Visiting the Blackfeet reservation in Montana, she received as a gift a wild stallion--a bridge to her ancestors who rode the hardy Plains horses as buffalo runners. In the book's most dramatic true-life tale, she defiantly quits her job as director of a horse facility rather than break in a gentle golden bay that does not want to jump cross-country obstacle courses. Exchanging security for freedom, she goes to live in a cabin with three "shy" wolves on an island off Washington State, where she now trains horses and runs Wolftown, a nonprofit organization that rescues wolves and horses. Martino believes that horses crave a good partnership even with an untrustworthy species like humans. Her tales of healing, survival and love indicate that we have much to learn from our equine friends.