Mr T, she says, taught her just about everything she knows. T, Smiley's first and most beloved horse and the model for a character of the same name in the book. 'The horse who inspired Horse Heaven was a gray who died about a year and a half ago,' she says. And not just because he's gray, her favorite color. 'I think he's still hiding his light under a bushel basket,' she says hopefully. Justa Bob is an equine mensch, a working-class horse whose downwardly mobile spiral (along with the unexpected conclusion) is one of the novel's most compelling story lines.įortunately, Smiley thinks it's unlikely that-as happened to Justa Bob several times-Wow will get claimed and go off to a different owner, since he's keeping his amazing potential a highly classified secret. One of the most memorable characters in Horse Heaven is a claimer named Justa Bob.

It's also risky, especially if the owner is attached to the horse, because the animal can be claimed-or purchased-by someone else up to 15 minutes before the start of the race. Having one's horse race with the claiming crowd is the horseracing equivalent of having one's book end up on the remainder table-there's no shame in it, but neither is there much glory. If you can't keep up with the allowance races he has to race with the claiming crowd.' 'Wow has been in what you call maiden allowance races, and he hasn't done very well-they've been too fast for him.

'There's a structure involved,' she says, explaining the convoluted plot of a horse's racing career. She's squeezing in this Santa Anita trip between book tour appearances for Horse Heaven (Ballantine, $14.95, paper), a galloping, deftly plotted delight of a novel with a Dickensian cast of two- and four-legged characters. But 'he seems to enjoy it, and he's happy,' says Smiley, who lives in Carmel Valley. Wow, whose official name is Hornblower, has three starts, or races, under his saddle, and his performance has been admittedly less than spectacular. He's been a little slow to realize his potential-in other words, he won't be running in the Derby this year.' He's gray, he's very pretty, and a year ago I sent him off to the racetrack, and he's trying to make his way. 'When he was born, he was just so fabulous looking that we called him Wow. Over a somewhat crackling car phone, the author of the racetrack novel Horse Heaven sings the praises of her 3-year-old Thoroughbred colt. JANE SMILEY is driving down to Southern California to see Wow race at Santa Anita. The author of 'Horse Heaven' weighs her chances at the track Galloping Gourmet: A herd of wild horses couldn't keep Jane Smiley away from writing novels.

Horse heaven by jane smiley