You are previewing: Hazel M Peel: Night Storm the Flat-racer

Hazel M Peel: Night Storm the Flat-racer

Author	Peel, H M (Hazel M Peel)
Publisher	Jane Badger Books
Series	Leysham Stud

Hazel M Peel: Night Storm the Flat-racer

Peel, H M (Hazel M Peel)

Ann and Jim have bred a wonderful black colt who looks as if he could be a Classic winner. But nothing is straightforward: Night Storm has a furious temper and is difficult to ride. There are questions about whether he’ll ever get as far as a racecourse, let alone race. And once he does race, there are people around who want to stop Night Storm in his tracks.

Part of the 1960s Leysham Stud series, where a couple fight to establish a prize-winning stud.

Originally published: 1966

Available in eBook and paperback

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Categories: 1960s, eBooks

Description
Meet The Author

Also by this author

Darius the Eventer
Dido and Rogue

Reviews

I read this some years ago and then liked it the least of the Leysham Stud series. However having read it now as an adult I like it much more. The characters are interesting (perhaps a little stereotypical?) and the horses are fabulous.The plot works and is well paced. There’s also a lot of information given throughout. Overall I liked this book much better this time around. (Dawn)

Available in eBook and paperback

Click here to buy the book.

Publishing history
Harrap, London, 1966, 176 pp, illus Clyde Pearson

Night Storm is Easter’s foal, now recovered from his ill treatment while he was stolen. Night Storm is sent for training to Henry Matthew’s training stables, which have just opened up near the Leysham Stud. If Night Storm is a winner, he will be kept by the Stud as a stallion, but his temperament makes him difficult to race, and then before the St Leger, for which the colt is entered, there is a plot to dope him.

The Leysham Stud series
Pilot the Hunter
Pilot the Chaser
Easter the Showjumper
Night Storm the Flat Racer
Dido and Rogue
Gay Darius
Untamed

Earlier editions

Author: Hazel M Peel

Peel, H M (Hazel M Peel)

H M Peel (Hazel Mary Peel, 1930–2013) is one of the lesser known pony book authors, probably because only two of her books were printed in paperback in the UK (Jago and Fury, by Armada in 1973). Both these stories are set in Australia, and are tales of racing and wild horses. Jago in particular is a powerful story which gives a strong sense of what it is like to be a horse. Jago, who starts life as a race horse, is made into a rogue by thoughtless treatment. He breaks out and starts to live life in the wild. His conversion into a horse in harmony with his harsh new environment is brilliantly described.

H M Peel’s other titles form a series (though they do in fact join up with the Jago story in Untamed). The Leysham Stud series features a grown-up couple, Ann Henderson and her husband Jim, and the stories are aimed at an older readership than the usual pony book, which is possibly why Armada did not publish any titles from it.

The first book featuring Ann is Pilot the Hunter, in which Ann buys the piebald Pilot at auction. He is, as she says, 'difficult at first': in fact most of the horses in the series are difficult, but for very different reasons.

You can read my interview with Hazel Peel here.

Leysham Stud series
Pilot the Hunter
Pilot the Chaser
Easter the Show Jumper
Night Storm the Flat Racer
Dido and Rogue
Gay Darius
Untamed

The Jago pair
Jago
Untamed

Bibliography
Fury, Son of the Wilds, 1959
Pilot the Hunter, 1962
Pilot the Chaser, 1964
Easter the Show Jumper, 1965
Jago, 1966
Night Storm the Flat Racer, 1966
Dido and Rogue, 1967
Gay Darius, 1968
Untamed, 1969
The Pocket Dictionary of the Horse, 1978, reprinted as The Revised Pocket Dictionary of the Horse, 2000

Finding the books
The hardback books are very hard to find (though the two Pilot books were also printed in America – they are reasonably easy to find there); the Armada paperbacks do turn up fairly often. Fidra Books have re-published Easter, and Hazel has re-published Jago and Fury, so these are all very easy to find. I have republished Darius as an eBook.

Links and sources
Interview and correspondence with Hazel M Peel
Many thanks to Sarah Beasley and Jacquie Aucott for their help with the pictures.