National Velvet

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For the 1980s Canadian rock band National Velvet, see National Velvet (band).

National Velvet is a novel by Enid Bagnold, first published in 1935.

[edit] Plot summary

National Velvet is the story of a girl, Velvet Brown, who rides her horse to victory in the Grand National steeplechase. The fictional horse which Velvet Brown trained and rode in the National is called The Piebald.

Velvet Brown is an awkward teenager living in a small English coastal village of Sewels in Sussex, dreaming of one day owning many horses. Her mother is a large taciturn woman who was once famous for swimming the English Channel; her father is a butcher. One day when Velvet is sent on a delivery for her father she encounters a strange man who, after a brief conversation with her, leaves all his horses to her in his will and then commits suicide.

Velvet and her sisters manage to feed and keep the horses, and they have some success entering in local gymkhanas. Meanwhile, Velvet wins her dream horse in a local raffle - an ungainly, strong-willed piebald gelding known as The Pie (short for "The Piebald"). This is the horse she has fallen in love with; together with her father's apprentice, Mi Taylor, she starts dreaming of winning the Grand National steeplechase.

After being given her mother's winnings (in gold) from swimming the English Channel for the entry fee and figuring out how to conceal Velvet's gender, Velvet and Mi take the trip to compete in the race. She gets through the jockeys' changing and weighing rooms, disguised as a Russian jockey, and wins the race almost by default; a thick fog has caused most of the horses to fall or refuse to jump. Velvet slips off the Piebald after the winning-post due to exhaustion, and her sex is discovered in the first-aid station. The racing world is both horrified and fascinated by a young girl's winning its toughest race and Velvet and the Piebald become a nine-day wonder, with Velvet and her family nearly drowning in notoriety (which echoes her mother's unsought fame after swimming the English Channel). The National Hunt Committee exonerates all involved, and Velvet and her family return to their ordinary lives.