The Life of Malé by Sabrina Ballentine

Do you have any bad habits while you’re writing?
No!

How did you research your book?
I began with my initial idea - to write a modern Black Beauty to encourage us all down the path of making life better for our animals, then found some information about the length of a book in this genre, (Young Adults/Older Teens). Then made a plan on a spreadsheet. I’m a Business Analyst by trade, so it seemed natural to plan it by weeks and number of words to aim for to get it done in a reasonable time, during lockdown, as no-one knew what was going on and how it would pan out. Previous travelling time became my writing time.

Are you working on anything else at the moment?
The next book in the series which follows on after The Life of Malé. It’s currently called ‘Hill Farm Horses’ and follows Sophie’s journey in setting up a rehabilitation centre for broken horses. It’s about half way to completion.

Author Information

I was brought up on one of Europe’s largest housing estate in the 60s and 70s. The estate was a few miles out of town, and there were footpaths very close, so I spent a lot of time in the countryside, walking and talking to the horses in the fields round about.

From a school friend, I heard about a riding school a few miles away that I could get to on the bus (our family had no car) so I rang and booked a lesson. I was 9. I was hardly away from the place for the next 5 years, and ended up working there at weekends in return for rides. The horses and ponies were kept very simply and their needs catered for. Nothing fancy. I didn’t appreciate it at the time, but that was the way to keep horses happy and healthy so that their time with people was beneficial to both.

I absorbed everything I could about horses and their care – the original horse mad girl, and entered the WH Smith ‘Own a Pony’ competition every year, but had no luck with that one. Sunday afternoons was time to call on my next-door neighbours – it was time for The Adventures of Black Beauty with Stacy Dorning (boy did I envy her), and their telly was colour. My mum brought 4 kids up on her own after my father died so food on the table and school uniforms came first. We’d sit on the floor side by side, glued to the screen to find out what Beauty was going to do this week.

It wasn’t until I was in my 40s that I was able to own my own horse. I’d lived around the country in different places, but came home to the Midlands and the time was finally right. I bought a beautiful appaloosa gelding with a posh pedigree name. I called him Dave. He’s still with me and I love him more than ever. We had our issues and it turned out he has a genetic disease which makes his muscles painful and sore. There’s no cure, but I had to learn to manage his workload to keep him comfortable. My dreams of county level show jumping died when the lab results landed. I couldn’t put him through the pain of intense exercise like that. He taught me how to put him first, how to assess how he was feeling each time I turned up at the yard, and how to listen to him and only ask what he could manage there and then. This is his gift to me.

Sitting in the obligatory leaky caravan at the start of lockdown, I was discussing equine care with a friend and we agreed there is a lot of ignorance which results in poor care and suffering for horses. I suggested that someone should write the next Black Beauty so we can learn to put the horses first, after all, the barn is on fire in welfare terms. As soon as I said it, I knew I had to do it. At least try.

Lockdown gave me more time than I’d ever had in the working week, so I had no excuse and ‘The Life of Malé’ was born.

Being an Animal Advocate is a dream of mine as I can’t think of anything better to do with a life that help animals. If reading the book helps one owner rethink the way they keep their horse, then it will have been worthwhile.

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