Rough Magic

By Lara Prior-Palmer,

Book cover of Rough Magic: Riding the World's Loneliest Horse Race

Book description

"Think the next Educated or Wild. Palmer’s memoir of beating the odds to become a horse champion is an inspiring saga of perseverance—and a classic underdog tale." —Entertainment Weekly

At the age of nineteen, Lara Prior–Palmer discovered a website devoted to “the world’s longest, toughest horse race”―an annual competition of…

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Why read it?

1 author picked Rough Magic as one of their favorite books. Why do they recommend it?

I loved the voice and turns of phrase in this book. Signing up for the Mongolian Derby (a ten-day horse race on 25 different semi-wild ponies across 1000km of Mongolia) seemed like a lark for nineteen-year-old Prior-Palmer. Knowing at the outset she won the race kept me turning the page to discover how the hell someone who seemed more squirrel than human accomplished such a feat.

Some of my favorite parts were when she tuned into the ponies she rode and imagined what they had to say. I kept thinking her positivity, humor, care for the ponies, and willingness to…

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