Rereading: THE BLACK STALLION AND FLAME by Walter Farley

Illustrated by Harold Eldridge

As the cover blurb says, a story requested by more than 3 million readers, this is almost fan fiction except that it’s written by Farley. In the previous book about Flame, “The Island Stallion Races,” he had to stretch credulity by using aliens to get the horse into a real race, here the stretch is not quite as extreme, but still unusual.

As happened in “The Black Stallion Mystery,” Alec and his champion horse The Black are in a plane crash, but this time with trainer and friend Henry Dailey and in the waters of the Caribbean during a hurricane. The human and equine passengers survive and get out of the wreck, humans on a life raft, and The Black and a group of mares swim off, with the two groups losing track of each other. The humans are rescued and brought to the (made up) island of Antago, where Alec and Henry follow up a sighting of a black horse on the beach in a remote area. They find that horse, it’s not The Black, and it’s dead, killed by the bite of a vampire bat infected with rabies. The Americans try to help the Antagans kill the bat, but it escapes.

Meanwhile, The Black and his mares have made landfall on the smaller island of Azul, which as far as most people know is a rock dome with only a small beach. But, as readers know, the interior of the island hides a valley with rich grasslands and a herd of horses descended from Conquistador stock housed here in secret by the Spanish centuries ago. Two other Americans do know about it, Steve Duncan and his uncle Pitch have discovered the hidden harbor under the rock edge, and Steve and Flame have the same kind of friendship that Alec and The Black do. Steve and Pitch are not in this story, though. The Black leads his mares into the secret harbor and then into the hidden valley, where a confrontation with Flame is sure to follow, but before it does, the two stallions must join forces against a common enemy, that rabid vampire bat, which has also found the valley and endangers them all.

This book is entertaining, even though totally driven by plot and coincidence. Fans of Farley’s two horse series loved it, as did I when reading it at age twelve or so. Recommended.

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