Love & grain saves filly: Thoroughbred #1: A Horse Called Wonder

The premise was cliche (girl takes care of sick horse, won't let her die, proves everyone wrong), but instead of the usual riding school/horse show setting, it was centered around horse racing, which appealed to me. I gobbled these books up until the plots got recycled waay to often. Anyway...
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Twelve y/o Ashleigh Griffen has just moved with her family to the celebrated Thoroughbred farm, Townsend Acres. Ashleigh is heartbroken--she claims she'll never love a horse again, not after a disease wiped out several of the horses at the Griffen's breeding farm. Insurance didn't cover the loss. It seems Ashleigh's parents were rather naive to the realities of what can happen at a multiple-horse farm. The family, composed of Derek and Elaine, fifteen-year-old Caroline, Ashleigh and eight-year-old Rory, now a small house, conveniently located on the farm.

The entire family takes a tour of the farm, to the dismay of Ashleigh. She'll never love a horse again! Yet she is both depressed AND intrigued about being surrounded by horses again. Townsend Acres has both breeding facilities and training facilities, so there are a lot of horses to remind Ashleigh about the tragedy at the Griffens' farm. One of the most handsome horses is of Townsend Pride, Townsend Acres's prize stallion.

Ashleigh mopes, gets attached to a gentle broodmare that looks like the special horse she used to have, mopes again, and finally loves 'Holly' completely. So much for never loving a horse again. An added bonus is that Holly is in foal to Townsend Pride! Ashleigh is appointed Holly's (unpaid, underage) groom per her dad's approval, because the farm owner totally won't care that a kid is under the care of an expensive and valuable broodmare. Ashleigh also watches Mr. Townsend's fifteen-year-old son, Brad, ride Townsend Pride's promising colt, Townsend Prince. Brad is "curt" to the Griffens; thus, Ashleigh labels him as a jerk right away.

Ash makes a BFF at school. Linda is fun and loves horses--what more could one want? School itself, though, takes up time swooning over horses and grooming Holly. Then...Ashleigh comes back from school one day and finds that Holly's foal has just been born! But It hasn't stood for minutes and the vet suggests putting the chestnut filly down. Ashleigh cries; I can't blame her for that, but then there's a conference over what to do. Mr. Townsend is away, and apparently, Derek Griffen is the only one who can make decisions about what to do with problem horses in the breeding barn. Ashleigh gets the filly to finally stand and nurse, but the foal's still weak. Ashleigh begs her dad for time. Derek agrees, but the vet is like, "y'all are totally frickin' nuts."

Ashleigh stays in the stall with Holly and the filly, only crawling out to go to school, where she talks and talks about the filly. Ashleigh doesn't like that some people say the filly won't make it. But other people support her, and the filly earns the unofficial name "Ashleigh's Wonder". A groom named April is Ashleigh's and Wonder's closest ally. Her boyfriend Jesse, who is also a groom, pretends he doesn't care about the Wonder, but he really does. April and Jesse are a cute couple. It's too bad both of them disappear after book #1.

Wonder isn't weaker, but isn't getting stronger either. Then, miracle of miracles! The crusty retired trainer Charlie, who is allowed to stay on the farm because he has no family, helps Ashleigh care for Wonder. They have a bit of conflict over Ashleigh's dream of being a [female] jockey, but they focus on nursing Wonder to strength with love, exercise, and a milk substitute mixed with bran mash. All of this magical food and love improves Wonder and helps Mr. Townsend rethink auctioning her off. During all this, Ashleigh is allowed to ride a retired gelding racehorse, Dominator. She also talks to Jilly, the female exercise rider who wants to become a jockey, too. Charlie eventually coaches Ashleigh to become a jockey.

Then Ashleigh's grades start to drop. She struggles to fix her grades, but she eventually has to give her parents her bad report card. Now she's banned to stop caring for Wonder until her grades improve. OHNO! Her grades get better, of course, and she works hard with to improve the filly's strength, exercising her even in the sleety winter. BUT Ashleigh gets sick! OH NO @2! Or not...Linda and Mrs. Griffen exercise Wonder in all of winter's sleety suckiness.

At last, Townsend must make a decision. Should Wonder be auctioned off? Oh the tension! Oh, the totally unpredictable ending (ha ha). In our closing scene, Ashleigh takes Wonder out to the stable yard, with Charlie silently supporting her. Mr. Townsend watches Ashleigh walk Wonder, and decides that Wonder's really improved. He'll give her another year before he makes a final decision.Everyone else is happy for Ashleigh and practically gives her a standing ovation. Wonder "whinnies for joy". Yeeeah. Now to move on to the terror-of-whips drama that is Wonder's Promise.