Snowman

The True Story of a Champion

Catherine Hapka

• Publisher: Aladdin
• Year: 2016
• eBook ISBN:
  9781481478144
• Print ISBN:
  9781481478137

A chance meeting between a riding instructor and a run-down horse unveils a hidden talent and sparks a remarkable rise to fame in this nonfiction illustrated middle grade book by the author of the Marguerite Henry’s Ponies of Chincoteague series.

Snowman, an Amish plow horse, was bound for the meat market when Harry deLeyer, a Long Island riding instructor, spotted him at auction. After making eye contact with the gentle giant, deLeyer decided to purchase him for eighty dollars.

At first, Snowman was just a horse that children rode during lessons, but when deLeyer sold him to a neighbor, the horse had other ideas. He would jump the high fences so he could return home. Harry then began training Snowman as a show jumper. Less than two years out of the plow fields, Snowman won the 1958 horse show jumping Triple Crown—the American Horse Shows Association Horse of the Year, Professional Horseman’s Association Champion, and Champion of Madison Square Garden’s Diamond Jubilee.

Snowman was inducted into the Show Jumping Hall of Fame in 1992.

Table of contents

• Cover
• Chapter 1: February 1956 New Holland, Pennsylvania End of the Road
• Chapter 2: Snowman
• Chapter 3: The Makeover
• Chapter 4: Harry’s History
• Chapter 5: The Knox School and Beyond
• Chapter 6: The Doctor’s Farm
• Chapter 7: Good Fences Make Good Neighbors
• Chapter 8: The Jumper
• Chapter 9: Sands Point, 1958
• Chapter 10: Open Jumpers: Day One
• Chapter 11: Open Jumpers: Day Two
• Chapter 12: The Final Day
• Chapter 13: Decisions
• Chapter 14: Fairfield
• Chapter 15: Headlines and Hardships
• Chapter 16: Terrible News
• Chapter 17: More News
• Chapter 18: Moving Forward
• Chapter 19: Piping Rock
• Chapter 20: On to the Garden
• Chapter 21: The Big One
• Chapter 22: End of the Road
• Chapter 23: What Happened After That?
• Photographs
• Acknowledgments
• About the Authors
• Copyright