She is supposed to be helping on her father's farm but through her carelessness causes a terrible and expensive accident. Her parents take drastic action to force her to grow up. They give her a tumbledown cottage on the farm and a few animals and tell her she has to fend for herself. At first Kate is devastated but then she helps save the life of a beautiful Shire horse mare called The January Queen. Old Joe the ex-farmer and breeder who thought he would lose the mare when forced to retire at the age of eighty, is overjoyed. A warm friendship develops between the pair and Joe helps her make something of the smallholding. But when disaster strikes will Kate show she is made of sterner stuff than before...An excellent adult story of horses, animals and the problems of both growing up and growing old.

    These are interpretations of the horse as perceptive as those done by Stubbs and Remington," wrote James A. Michener in his foreword to Vavra's best-selling classic, Equus - the creation of a horse. But Such is the Real Nature of Horses is bigger and even more spectacular than Equus, if that's possible, with 343 brilliant color photographs celebrating the horse.