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Thoroughbred #21
Wonder's Champion
The moment Cindy has waited her whole life for...
Cindy McLean's colt, Wonder's Champion, is facing the three most challenging races of his career. To win the Triple Crown, he has to sweep not only the Kentucky Derby but the Preakness and the Belmont Stakes as well.
Cindy has trained Wonder's Champion to become Whitebrook's greatest runner yet. But her work is far from over. Illness and injuries threaten to ruin her colt's chances of winning. And now it's up to Cindy to prove to everyone that her colt is truly a winner.
Cindy McLean's colt, Wonder's Champion, is facing the three most challenging races of his career. To win the Triple Crown, he has to sweep not only the Kentucky Derby but the Preakness and the Belmont Stakes as well.
Cindy has trained Wonder's Champion to become Whitebrook's greatest runner yet. But her work is far from over. Illness and injuries threaten to ruin her colt's chances of winning. And now it's up to Cindy to prove to everyone that her colt is truly a winner.
208 pages, Paperback
First published January 1, 1997
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301 people want to read
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Displaying 1 - 9 of 9 reviews
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April 27, 2024****Skimmed****
I think this author should have written fantasy because she always wants to solve these horses’ issues by ✨magic✨ hidden under some vague advice.
Oh, and it’s also cool for a small child to jump large fences on an unfamiliar horse without permission because she’s a ✨winner.✨ No, she’s going to end up dead.
I think this author should have written fantasy because she always wants to solve these horses’ issues by ✨magic✨ hidden under some vague advice.
Oh, and it’s also cool for a small child to jump large fences on an unfamiliar horse without permission because she’s a ✨winner.✨ No, she’s going to end up dead.
January 20, 2019
This volume didn't disappoint me because I didn't have high expectations to begin with. Cindy is my least favourite narrator and I was eager to read this and get into the next gen.
We've got the usual brand of Cindy arrogance and contradictions and nonsense ability on how to train horses. She's constantly letting bad behaviour happen or even praising it at one stage. I'm honestly not surprised that Champion is a lot to handle. Then her contradicting inner thoughts when he does something bad because "ohmygosh I thought we'd worked through that" when pages ago we clearly hadn't.
I feel like a lot of the tension and plot was forced in this one. It took half way through the book for an actual plot to emerge but even then it wasn't super compelling or clear. This book is made up of side plots of teenage romances, Mandy's horse searching and school dances. Not boring, I still found this easy to read through, but not as interesting as other ones.
As usual (as seems to be the trend with the TB books I'm reading lately) they royally screwed up the blurb. The major conflict concerns instead of him being plague by injuries as the blurb suggests. I would LOVE to chat to the people who made the blurb and ask them if they read the book at all?
They're easy to read through, but I felt like this book didn't have to exist. It doesn't really further the lives of the characters or even create super suspenseful moments. The cover guarantees you know the ending before it happens therefore where is the suspense? I think too many books are spent on training Champion when he's rideable as opposed to two other formats a) the books spanning Wonder's development where we have books spanning her from birth to retirement age OR b) have one book focused on fixing the troubled horse for good as with Sierra's case.
I hate that we've gone back and forth with Champion, reaching a conclusion at the end of each book only to find he has ANOTHER issue to deal with. I'm convinced it's because Cindy is a moron and shouldn't be in charge of him. She allows him to be a naughty horse.
Thank heavens for that, I'm looking forward to Melanie, Christina and Parker. Keen to find out how Christina and Parker get together - TENSION CITY. But apparently there are a couple of older Cindy volumes in which she doesn't change. I just read the back of book 54 and
We've got the usual brand of Cindy arrogance and contradictions and nonsense ability on how to train horses. She's constantly letting bad behaviour happen or even praising it at one stage. I'm honestly not surprised that Champion is a lot to handle. Then her contradicting inner thoughts when he does something bad because "ohmygosh I thought we'd worked through that" when pages ago we clearly hadn't.
I feel like a lot of the tension and plot was forced in this one. It took half way through the book for an actual plot to emerge but even then it wasn't super compelling or clear. This book is made up of side plots of teenage romances, Mandy's horse searching and school dances. Not boring, I still found this easy to read through, but not as interesting as other ones.
As usual (as seems to be the trend with the TB books I'm reading lately) they royally screwed up the blurb. The major conflict concerns instead of him being plague by injuries as the blurb suggests. I would LOVE to chat to the people who made the blurb and ask them if they read the book at all?
They're easy to read through, but I felt like this book didn't have to exist. It doesn't really further the lives of the characters or even create super suspenseful moments. The cover guarantees you know the ending before it happens therefore where is the suspense? I think too many books are spent on training Champion when he's rideable as opposed to two other formats a) the books spanning Wonder's development where we have books spanning her from birth to retirement age OR b) have one book focused on fixing the troubled horse for good as with Sierra's case.
I hate that we've gone back and forth with Champion, reaching a conclusion at the end of each book only to find he has ANOTHER issue to deal with. I'm convinced it's because Cindy is a moron and shouldn't be in charge of him. She allows him to be a naughty horse.
Thank heavens for that, I'm looking forward to Melanie, Christina and Parker. Keen to find out how Christina and Parker get together - TENSION CITY. But apparently there are a couple of older Cindy volumes in which she doesn't change. I just read the back of book 54 and
October 20, 2011
Awesome!!!!!!!!!!
April 30, 2015
A great series for tweens that love horses and/or are interested in horseback riding or racing. Teaches about the struggles of working with animals and the benefits.
November 26, 2024
Well, the cover gives the game away, so no tension here as Champion begins his Triple Crown campaign. I guess it was inevitable that a foal of Wonder's would win the Triple Crown, but this was written in a really dull and formulaic way by the first ghostwriter in the series, Karen Bently.
Bently did a horrible job with the trilogy of books devoted to Champion. She was clearly burned out and couldn't wait to exit the series. She would pull herself together to make a halfway decent book for her swan song, Cindy's Honor. But in the meantime, it's a mean time.
Cindy is still in high school when Champion goes for the glory (pun intended) and gets SO MUCH LOVE AND SUPPORT from her classmates, it's sickening. Didn't Bently go to a high school? In real life, even in Kentucky, the vast majority of high schoolers don't care about horse racing, and would really resent the rich kid getting all the attention. And, for a book published in 1997, why didn't anyone in Cindy's class get in her face for supporting horse cruelty? Now, THAT would've been interesting to read.
Instead, we get a little girl's fantasy of somehow having a Triple Crown winner, even if she didn't legally own the horse. It makes for a very bloodless read. The only interesting thing was the birth of the first foal sired by March to Glory. Unfortunately, that foal disappears from the series. Glory even makes a cameo in this book.
Other horses that appear include the broodmare Heavenly Choir, Mr. Wonderful, Fleet Street, Honor Bright, Silken Maiden, Freedom's Ring, Limitless Time and Townsend Victor (Champion's ill-fated sire.) The jumpers Cisco, Top Hat and Butterball appear, for just about the last time in the series.
As another reviewer pointed out, the blurb is wrong. Champion is not plagued by illness and injury, but bad behavior.
Bently did a horrible job with the trilogy of books devoted to Champion. She was clearly burned out and couldn't wait to exit the series. She would pull herself together to make a halfway decent book for her swan song, Cindy's Honor. But in the meantime, it's a mean time.
Cindy is still in high school when Champion goes for the glory (pun intended) and gets SO MUCH LOVE AND SUPPORT from her classmates, it's sickening. Didn't Bently go to a high school? In real life, even in Kentucky, the vast majority of high schoolers don't care about horse racing, and would really resent the rich kid getting all the attention. And, for a book published in 1997, why didn't anyone in Cindy's class get in her face for supporting horse cruelty? Now, THAT would've been interesting to read.
Instead, we get a little girl's fantasy of somehow having a Triple Crown winner, even if she didn't legally own the horse. It makes for a very bloodless read. The only interesting thing was the birth of the first foal sired by March to Glory. Unfortunately, that foal disappears from the series. Glory even makes a cameo in this book.
Other horses that appear include the broodmare Heavenly Choir, Mr. Wonderful, Fleet Street, Honor Bright, Silken Maiden, Freedom's Ring, Limitless Time and Townsend Victor (Champion's ill-fated sire.) The jumpers Cisco, Top Hat and Butterball appear, for just about the last time in the series.
As another reviewer pointed out, the blurb is wrong. Champion is not plagued by illness and injury, but bad behavior.
March 2, 2025
I read this book at the age it was meant for: 12-14 year old horse obsessed girls. I absolutely poured myself into Cindy and longed for her life as someone who had zero access to horses growing up. Yeah, it’s a book that’s not exactly well written, sure it has issues. I can only speak for the way this particular book fed my brain at the time and gave me a safe place to disappear into when real life was crap. I ended up getting others, but this was my first one in the series and I’ll never forget it.
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February 14, 2025Years later, and I still find Champion insufferable.
October 6, 2025
Childhood favourite series (haven't read in a long time) giving all four stars unless it was a favourite as a child.
February 4, 2017
In this book, Champion wins the Triple Crown. Cindy helped train the colt and formed a special bond the spirited colt. He wins the Kentucky Derby. After winning the Preakness, Champion comes out of it with a superficial cut on the bulb of his right front foot. Luckily, his foot heals quickly. Champion goes on to win the Belmont, thus winning the Triple Crown.
Displaying 1 - 9 of 9 reviews