The Perfect Horse Quotes

“An old adage says that a good rider can hear his horse speak and a great rider can hear his horse whisper.”
― Elizabeth Letts, The Perfect Horse: the Daring U.S. Mission to Rescue the Priceless Stallions Kidnapped by the Nazis

“The men of the 2nd cavalry had grown so close that some felt like members of his own family—none more so than the faithful young man who had saved his life three times, Jim O’leary. On the day of O'leary's departure, Hank wrote a letter to the young man’s mother back in Chicago. In it, he said, 'I have no sons. If I had one, I could wish nothing more but that he be a son as fine as yours.”
― Elizabeth Letts, The Perfect Horse: the Daring U.S. Mission to Rescue the Priceless Stallions Kidnapped by the Nazis

“The war had destroyed many things, but one of the worst casualties was the loss of hope for a peaceful world. Yet every man who saw these horses at Hostau ended up with a smile on his face and an image in his mind of a world less troubled than the one in which he currently dwelled.”
― Elizabeth Letts, The Perfect Horse: The Daring U.S. Mission to Rescue the Priceless Stallions Kidnapped by the Nazis

“Great dressage demands more than skill; it engages a rider's inner wisdom and his ability to communicate with a mount in the silent language of horsemanship.”
― Elizabeth Letts, The Perfect Horse: the Daring U.S. Mission to Rescue the Priceless Stallions Kidnapped by the Nazis

“Just as ballroom dancing and pair skating command partners to work together seamlessly, in the sport of dressage, the rider performers an intricate pas de deux with his partner—a twelve-hundred-pound four-footed beast.”
― Elizabeth Letts, The Perfect Horse: the Daring U.S. Mission to Rescue the Priceless Stallions Kidnapped by the Nazis

“Nine-tenths of the fighting came as a result of stumbling into it.”
― Elizabeth Letts, The Perfect Horse: the Daring U.S. Mission to Rescue the Priceless Stallions Kidnapped by the Nazis

“Everything that mattered in Hank Reed’s life, outside of his family, revolved around horses. Starting with his days as a cadet, he had lived in a world that could measure everything—honor, kindliness, discipline, sporting spirit, diligence, and, most of all, courage—in equestrian terms. His brain was crammed with the nomenclature of horses: cantle, withers, curb chain, bran mash, fetlock, stock tie, near side, picket line. He knew the aids for a flying lead change, the correct attire for a foxhunt, the thunder of charging by platoon, and the serenity of riding alone on a quiet path, with only his mount’s breaths and cadenced footsteps for company. The rhythm of a horse’s strides was like music to him—the walk a ballad in four/four time, the trot a rousing two-beat march, the canter a smooth three-beat waltz. Reed knew the scent of fresh straw in the stable, the tickle of a horse’s whiskers as it nuzzled up a carrot. He knew that endless moment when a fall was inevitable and then the sudden breathless smack of landing hard on packed dirt. He knew what the end of a day on horseback felt like, salty with sweat, dirt under his fingernails, and a mind whitewashed from all worry. More than anything, Hank Reed understood what was unspoken among all of these horse soldiers. Sunburned, brusque, tough, accustomed to giving and taking orders, they knew that if you live, eat, sleep, and breathe horses for long enough, they become part of you, and your soul is forever altered.”
― Elizabeth Letts, The Perfect Horse: The Daring U.S. Mission to Rescue the Priceless Stallions Kidnapped by the Nazis

“Presence of mind, and courage in distress, / Are more than armies to procure success.” Trained”
― Elizabeth Letts, The Perfect Horse: The Daring U.S. Mission to Rescue the Priceless Stallions Kidnapped by the Nazis

“Designed to showcase the Nazi Party’s Aryan ideals, the Berlin Olympics were a piece of nationalistic theater dressed up as a sporting event.”
― Elizabeth Letts, The Perfect Horse: The Daring U.S. Mission to Rescue the Priceless Stallions Kidnapped by the Nazis

“though as he looked across the field at the international panel of judges assembled there, he knew that this was not just a competition but also an elaborate game of political chess.”
― Elizabeth Letts, The Perfect Horse: The Daring U.S. Mission to Rescue the Priceless Stallions Kidnapped by the Nazis

“THE HORSES Lotnik: Gray Arabian stallion foaled in Poland. Neapolitano Africa: Austrian Lipizzaner performing stallion, one of Alois Podhajsky’s personal mounts. Pluto Theodorosta: Austrian Lipizzaner performing stallion, one of Alois Podhajsky’s personal mounts. Witez: /Vee-tezh/ Bay Arabian stallion foaled in Poland in 1938. His official registered name was Witez”
― Elizabeth Letts, The Perfect Horse: The Daring U.S. Mission to Rescue the Priceless Stallions Kidnapped by the Nazis

“THE AMERICANS Major James Pitman: West Point graduate, lover of dogs and horses. Executive officer of the 42nd Squadron of the 2nd Cavalry. Lieutenant William Donald “Quin” Quinlivan: Career cavalryman. Assigned to the 42nd Squadron of the 2nd Cavalry. Colonel Charles Hancock “Hank” Reed: Virginia-born, expert horseman, commanding officer of the 2nd Cavalry. Captain Ferdinand Sperl: Swiss-born naturalized U.S. citizen. Interrogator attached to the 2nd Cavalry. Captain Thomas Stewart: Son of a Tennessee senator. Intelligence officer in the 2nd Cavalry.”
― Elizabeth Letts, The Perfect Horse: The Daring U.S. Mission to Rescue the Priceless Stallions Kidnapped by the Nazis

“LIST OF CHARACTERS THE EUROPEANS Andrzej Kristalovich (Andrzej Krzysztalowicz): /Ahn-jay Kshee-stal-o-veech/ Director of Poland’s national stud farm. Rudolf Lessing: German army veterinarian stationed at the Hostau stud farm in Czechoslovakia. Alois Podhajsky: /Ah-loys Pod-hey-skee/ Austrian director of the Spanish Riding School of Vienna. Gustav Rau: German horse expert. Chief equerry in charge of all horse breeding in the Third Reich. Hubert Rudofsky: Czech-born ethnic German. Director of the stud farm in Hostau, Czechoslovakia. Jan Ziniewicz:”
― Elizabeth Letts, The Perfect Horse: The Daring U.S. Mission to Rescue the Priceless Stallions Kidnapped by the Nazis

“Among the twentieth-century descendants of the Spanish horse, the Lipizzaner was the most rarefied. Each had its royal pedigree tattooed upon it: the birthplace on the right shoulder; the dam, or mother, on the left flank and the sire on the right flank; and the letter L, marking it as a purebred Lipizzaner, on the cheek. Each was descended from one of six original sires, all born between 1765 and 1810. These”
― Elizabeth Letts, The Perfect Horse: The Daring U.S. Mission to Rescue the Priceless Stallions Kidnapped by the Nazis

“The dam, a gray mare, had a rare marking called “the bloody shoulder.” According to Arabian lore, a mare with this distinctive patch of reddish hair would give birth to horses that would win glory in battle. At”
― Elizabeth Letts, The Perfect Horse: The Daring U.S. Mission to Rescue the Priceless Stallions Kidnapped by the Nazis

“Bolshevik marauders in 1917 raided most of the large Polish stud farms and slaughtered the horses, which they viewed as playthings of princes. Horses hung from the barn rafters, their throats slit. Stable courtyards turned into lakes of blood. Of the five hundred registered purebred Arabians in Poland prior to 1917, only fifty survived the raids.”
― Elizabeth Letts, The Perfect Horse: The Daring U.S. Mission to Rescue the Priceless Stallions Kidnapped by the Nazis

“Sir Francis Galton, a cousin of Charles Darwin, first coined the term “eugenics” in his 1883 book Human Faculty and Its Development.”
― Elizabeth Letts, The Perfect Horse: The Daring U.S. Mission to Rescue the Priceless Stallions Kidnapped by the Nazis

“The Thoroughbred was originally an English breed, and to this day, all so-named horses trace their lineage back to three stallions imported into England from the Middle East in the late seventeenth and early eighteenth centuries.”
― Elizabeth Letts, The Perfect Horse: The Daring U.S. Mission to Rescue the Priceless Stallions Kidnapped by the Nazis

“In truth, Belmont’s Jockey Club, the organization that controlled Thoroughbred racing in America, was founded by a mix of people. Some were blue-blooded Americans who traced their ancestry to Mayflower voyagers and Puritan founding fathers, and others were nouveau riche industrialists who wished to ally themselves—through marriages to aristocrats, membership in the Episcopal Church, and associations with the elite sport of horse racing—to the American upper crust. At”
― Elizabeth Letts, The Perfect Horse: The Daring U.S. Mission to Rescue the Priceless Stallions Kidnapped by the Nazis

“The stallion’s crest was arched, his nose was perpendicular to the floor, and his hind legs were gathered underneath him, showing off the powerfully developed muscles in his massive hindquarters. His ears cocked back toward his rider—he was concentrating.”
― Elizabeth Letts, The Perfect Horse: the Daring U.S. Mission to Rescue the Priceless Stallions Kidnapped by the Nazis

“Among the numerous heartbreaks of this terrible war, the innocent horses shot, abused, and killed would not rank among the worst atrocities—but somehow, the killing of innocent beasts, domesticated animals who existed only for man's beauty and pleasure, seemed to highlight the barbaric and depraved depths to which man had allowed himself to sink.”
― Elizabeth Letts, The Perfect Horse: the Daring U.S. Mission to Rescue the Priceless Stallions Kidnapped by the Nazis