"Melissa Holbrook Pierson was one of those horse-crazy girls who later returned to riding with a new appreciation for the nature of horses. She delves beneath the shallow hypotheses explaining women's connection to horses to look at how this communication with another animal opens us up to a new apprehension of the larger "natural" world.

Melding memoir, sociology, history, anecdote, and a bit of prose poetry, Dark Horses and Black Beauties is a unique approach to its subject that also seeks to transcend it, to venture into the dark territory of humankind's relationship with animals - and with itself."--BOOK JACKET.