The Black Stallion's Ghost

The Black Stallion #18

by Walter Farley

While riding the Black in the Everglades one day, Alec meets a man astride a ghostly gray mare. Alec’s fascination with the man turns to fear as he realizes the man is dangerously close to insanity. Soon Alec and the Black are caught up in a deadly chase through the depths of the Everglades, where a misstep could be fatal.

Genres: Horses, Fiction, Childrens, Animals, Young Adult, Classics, Middle Grade

208 pages, Paperback

First published January 1, 1969

About the author

Walter Farley's love for horses began when he was a small boy living in Syracuse, New York, and continued as he grew up in New York City, where his family moved. Young Walter never owned a horse. But unlike most city children, he had little trouble gaining firsthand experience with horses-his uncle was a professional horseman, and Walter spent much of his time at the stables with him.

"He wasn't the most successful trainer of race horses," Mr. Farley recalled, "and in a way I profited by it. He switched from runners to jumpers to show horses to trotters and pacers, then back to runners again. Consequently, I received a good background in different kinds of horse training and the people associated with each."

Walter Farley began to write his first book, THE BLACK STALLION, while he was a student at Brooklyn's Erasmus Hall High School and Mercersburg Academy in Pennsylvania, and

finished it while he was an undergraduate at Columbia University. It was published by Random House when he was 26. He used his first advance to go traveling and after that hardly stopped longer than it took him to write another book. He traveled and lived in Mexico, Hawaii, the South Seas, most of the South American countries, the Caribbean Islands, and Europe.

The appearance of THE BLACK STALLION in 1941 was hailed by enthusiastic boys and girls all over the country. An avalanche of mail urged Mr. Farley to write more about Alec Ramsey and the Black. But World War II intervened. Mr. Farley went into the US Army, where he spent the next five years. Most of the time he was assigned to Yank, the army weekly magazine, and he was also trained in the Fourth Armored Division.

After the war Walter Farley resumed the adventures of Alec and the Black with THE BLACK STALLION RETURNS. This was followed by SON OF THE BLACK STALLION. Then Mr. Farley tried his hand at a story about a new boy, Steve Duncan, and a new horse, Flame, in THE ISLAND STALLION. Mr. Farley's readers were just as delighted with this book as his others.

Mr. Farley went on to write many more stories about the two stallions, and about other horses as well. Children of all ages have found Farley titles to enjoy, since many of the later stories were written for Mr. Farley's own children when they were too young to read his Stallion novels. And older readers and adults have been gripped by his fictionalized biography of America's greatest Thoroughbred, Man O'War. Walter Farley's titles reached a grand total of 34. The 21 Black Stallion and Island Stallion stories are still in print and selling steadily. His readers respond with passion, writing him thousands of letters and emails every year. In May 1949, the first Black Stallion Club was founded, in Kentucky. Mr. Farley designed a membership button for it; the button was in constant demand among his readers for years. The Black Stallion books were so popular in the late 1940s and '50s that they York Times annual list of best-selling children's books. Three nationwide Black Stallion contests were held. Walter Farley's books have been published abroad in more than 20 countries, including Austria, Czechoslovakia, Denmark, England, Israel, Finland, France, Germany, Holland, Iceland, India, Indonesia, Italy, Japan, Malaya, Norway, Russia, Saudi Arabia, Sweden, and Switzerland, as well as in the United States and Canada.

All his life Walter Farley remained a keen spectator of the racing scene, and he enjoyed nothing more than hobnobbing with horse trainers and other professional horsemen. It is thanks to these people that his books are so full of authentic details of raising and training horses. When not busy working or traveling, Mr. Farley liked to ride dressage and high school Lippizaner horses. He also sailed and sometimes raced his 35-foot auxiliary sloop "Circe."

Mr. Farley and his wife Rosemary, had four children: Pam, Alice, Steve, and Tim, whom they raised on a farm in Pennsylvania and in a beach house in Florida. In addit

Reviews

[Sarah McC · Rating 1 out of 5]

I really thought that The Island Stallion Races (remember? ALIENS!) would be enough of a ramble into the world of the alien and supernatural for Farley, but he ventures there again in this completely pointless story. I’m not even going to bother describing the plot. Suffice to say, Alec spends most of the story running around the Everglades in the dark, pursued by some sort of supernatural being/god who scares another guy to death. The book has virtually nothing to do with the Black; a race is thrown in at the end for no reason; the storyline of the series (what little is left, anyway) is not in any way furthered by this book.

[ClaraBelle · Rating 3 out of 5]

Plot: it tells the story of The Black Stallions love affair with French circus horse, Ghost, owned by a mysterious and evil man. It was really weird and scary as it was set in the Everglades and was full of suicide, danger, crocodiles and witchcraft.
Warning: graphic details about suicide, witchcraft and crocodiles
Recommend: for older readers who love horses, Englishmen, , and adventure
Rating: 3 stars
Read:5/5-18/20

[Christine Meunier · Rating 3 out of 5]

Alec Ramsay is back in this adventure with his 17 hand high Arabian stallion, the Black. On a break between racing campaigns, Alec and the Black are housed on a stud farm passing time whilst the Black’s trainer Henry is dealing with business elsewhere.

Whilst out on a ride to exercise his horse, Alec finds himself drawn to the Everglades, a haunting and unusual swampland. Read more at http://equus-blog.com/the-black-stall...

[Louise · Rating 1 out of 5]

Je comprends la volonté de changer un peu du milieu des courses mais je trouve pour le coup que c'est vraiment très mal amené. Le livre est long et répétitif, on ne comprends pas du tout la finalité de l'histoire

[Sarah · Rating 2 out of 5]

This happened to be the only other Black Stallion book I own, so it was our next step after the first, and for me a big disappointment. (And it was also clear that much had happened in the interim...which makes sense since this is apparently book 17!) At the start, it's just really weird - like there's this circus horse and all sorts of superstition, and then it just gets weirder and a lot scarier. Yet by the end, the Black is back in a race where he belongs and all is well...despite the fact that his wounds earlier in the book are never addressed! We enjoyed reading about Alec and the Black again, but I think we would have been better off with an earlier sequel.

[Bonnie · Rating 1 out of 5]

The last few books in this series are really bad and what's really sad is that as much as I hated this one, there are worse books in the series. Re-reading this childhood favorite has been a real love-hate relationship. The books I remember liking the best, I still love. I think the ones I didn't like, I hate even more. In this book Alec and The Black get lost in the Everglades and spend the night with an old man determined to "steal" a mating for his mare with The Black. The night is filled with terror and voodoo. Really horrible book.

[AnnaScott · Rating 1 out of 5]

YUCK!!! I just wanted to yell at Alec "Go home!!!" It was such a weird book!! One of those books where Alec lives some experience and he falls asleep right before that so you think he is dreaming but he isn't, so it portrays the fact that there are ghosts and the like. There are several books in this series that are the same, and I did not like any of them!!!

[Melody · Rating 1 out of 5]

Wow. This one may be even worse than the rabid bat one. Or the one with the alien horse race aficionados. Either way, it's near the very bottom of Farley's oat bag. Ludicrous plot. No Henry to speak of. Weird gods. Inexplicable characters who flicker in and out. Give it a miss.

[Isabelle · Rating 5 out of 5]

This is the only book from the Black Stallion series that I kept; This one is a scary horror story, with a raging storm that traps them deep in the Everglade swamps with a sinister stranger. Then a ghost story about a swamp demon begins to come true... *shiver*

[gracepalm · Rating 4 out of 5]

this kid has been through so much in these books LOL 😭 this book was terrifying in the weirdest way possible.
also
what?

[Kensie Linton · Rating 5 out of 5]

The main characters in this book are Alec and a new guy he met in the swamp named Captain Philippe de Plumminel. He is in the circus unit. He has a horse named the Ghost because of her swift movements. The setting takes place in the Everglades with the captain.

The conflict in this book starts when Alec met the captain and the captain wanted Alec to come back with him to his house in the middle of the Everglades. The captain wants to breed the Black with his mare, but Alec can’t because the racing season isn't over yet. There was a storm, so Alec couldn't head back to his house. The captain put the Black in the barn for the night. Alec was worried because his stallion was in the same barn as his mare and didn't want the Black to get out of the stall and get to the mare. Alec had to sleep in the upper part of the house that night. The captain had told some stories about the legend of Kovi. The captain didn't listen to Alec about him breeding and so that night the captain went out to the barn and tried to breed the two horses. Alec caught him beating the Black because the stallion was trying to attack the captain. Alec attacked the captain and the Black ran out into the Everglades toward the home of Kovi. The captain apologized to Alec and they set out into the Everglades on the search for the stallion. They ran all the way to the home of Kovi. The captain went somewhere and came back so terrified he couldn't move. Alec took off to go look for the Black so they could get out of the place. Alec wasn't scared of Kovi because he thought it was all an imagination. He was caught by Kovi and was sent into darkness. He eventually got out of the darkness and had figured that it was what the captain had saw. When Alec found the Black he got on him and went back to the area he had left the captain. He wasn't there so he went searching for him. He found the captain dead by a tree with wounds and blood surrounding him. He went back to the captain’s house to tell Odin, another man at the captain’s house, to tell him the captain was dead. When he got to the house, both the barn and the house was locked so tightly. Odin had left with the mare. A few weeks later he went to the circus where the mare was playing. Odin had sold her to some other circus man who would show her in the circus. After the mare was done with her act he went past the security guards and found the mare in her stall. He talked the man into letting him buy her for $30,000! He bought her because she was pregnant with the Black’s foal and for other reasons.

I think this book was really awesome. At the beginning I didn't really know what was happening, but as the book went on I understood more. I was so into the book. It was great! I was so shocked when the captain had died. I wasn't expecting any of that to happen. I would recommend this book to my friend Abby Sparks and any other person that likes a lot of surprises!

[Wendy · Rating 1 out of 5]

I hated this one. It was surreal and far-fetched and horrific and not at all what I was expecting, all in the worst ways possible. And, yet again, there was no point, as this is never mentioned again, and we're not sure if the Ghost is pregnant or not.

So why did Farley put us through this torture? Well, do you remember The Island Stallion Races? He was clearly insane by this point, it's the only explanation.

Now, despite the harsh sound of that, I do want to point out that his daughter, Pam (remember this when you read The Black Stallion and the Girl), died in an accident while traveling with friends through Europe. This was understandably devastating and likely contributed to Farley's increasingly erratic, strange writing, so while I do believe he was insane by this point, I also think he was deserving of sympathy at the same time.

However, all of that does not make this book worth reading, so I advise you to skip it.

[Anja · Rating 2 out of 5]

After an exhausting racing season, the Black and Alec spend some time in the Everglades. There they meet a strange man riding a dressage horse. Although Alec is very cautious, he accepts an invitation to have lunch with the stranger. A thunderstorm forces him to stay overnight with the stranger, unaware that he has plans for the Black.

This book was more of a horror or at least a mystery story than a horse book and it was definitely not the story I expect when I read a book about the Black. If I hadn't enjoyed most of the other books in this series, this book would have ended up on the DNF shelf. So I struggled through the book, but I really didn't like it.

[Stefanie Robinson · Rating 3 out of 5]

In this book, Alec and the Black are riding around through the Everglades, which is a weird place to be pleasure riding, in my opinion. They run across a beautiful circus mare, Ghost, and her mysterious rider. The rider of Ghost turns out to be more weird than one expects, and Alec and Black find themselves in a strange dash for safety. This book actually mentioned witchcraft and suicide, which I was slightly surprised by, but as it turns out, I am into morbid things and it didn't bother me much. Not the best book in the series, but not the worst.

[Sophia Barsuhn · Rating 5 out of 5]

Yep, I'll be rereading this again. I am now convinced that these books take place in an alternate universe, a multiverse if you will, in which aliens made contact with humans in the 1950s (see The Island Stallion Races) and it is possible to visit other worlds, as Alec did in this book (in a way that was almost like tessering from A Wrinkle in Time). Worlds that the human brain can't yet comprehend. You could tell that Walter Farley was really having fun with this book. I think he missed his calling as a sci-fi writer.

[Lauren · Rating 3 out of 5]

This is a weird one. Not aliens in a dream weird, but weird nonetheless. It is also pretty disturbing, and I was really bothered by Henry's lack of faith in Alec.

The story itself is interesting, though a little incomplete. The Captain is a compelling victim, but the ending felt disjointed and mostly just bitter.

I recommend to dedicated fans of the series, otherwise skip it.

[Taylor · Rating 1 out of 5]

HORRIBLE

[Victoria · Rating 1 out of 5]

Oh my gosh, I cannot believe how boring this book was.

[Arwen Ramsay · Rating 5 out of 5]

Oh my gosh I was literally scared. The age suggestion must be different than the first several. Maybe, like, youngest age 12? Probably close to Harry Potter. Well, anyways, I suggest this book!

Summary:

What a nice vacation, no Henry, no work, ride all day, how nice! Well, that changes quickly. Alec and the Black are riding through the everglades when they come across a strange black man and a white dressage mare. She dances to eerie and creepy music, and it's more than enough to drive someone into the saddest of thoughts. The man invites Alec to tea, and Alec accepts. The Black and the white mare are separated, and Alec is forced to stay the night because of a bad lightning storm. Alec learns many things about the man and the mare that creep him out, including the terrifying legend of Koví. When Alec learns the man just wants the Black son he can breed to his mare, he goes ballistic. What? No! The Black is supposed to be AWAY from mares right now! The Black runs into the everglades, and Alec chases him. The man follows him, terrifying, for Alec is leading them toward Koví's lair. When "Koví" comes out and chases Alec, he realizes he is creating a mental image, and tries to explain that to the man. When he finds the black, he then goes and finds the man, dead. Alec returns to where he was staying and buys the white mare, even though Henry he thinks he is our of his mind.

[Lizzy Bassett · Rating 4 out of 5]

I read this book a while back, when I was terrified of ghosts, thinking it would not be scary at all. I. Was. Terrified. Its not even that scary and looking back I am very ashamed. But if you are going to read it, be prepared for some creepy mysterys and jump scares, if that's a thing in books. But yeah overall it was a good book, but I dont remember most of it, as I said before, I read it a couple years ago. I think I can trust my younger self....

[Katie Winkler · Rating 5 out of 5]

Loved this one especially

[Nicole Mosley · Rating 5 out of 5]

This book scared me as a 7-year-old.

[Debi Emerson · Rating 3 out of 5]

For me, this wasn't one of the better Black Stallion books, but still good.

[Peace · Rating 1 out of 5]

I hated it -- read it only because I'm reading through the series. Others were disappointing, but I found this one so bad, I'm hesitating to finish the set.

[Glennis · Rating 2 out of 5]

Not my favorite.... A bit awkward and disjointed.
But...have to love the relationship between Alec and the Black!

[Tim McDougall · Rating 1 out of 5]

Irritating read very frustrating reading the story.

[Margaret Chind]

My cover does not match the ISBN.

[Meg · Rating 4 out of 5]

WAY too creepy but GREAT at the same time!

[Suzanne · Rating 3 out of 5]

I didn’t like this one as much as the others. It had too much atmosphere and not enough action.

[J]

SKW to BHW