Chosen by a Horse

I’ll admit, I rolled my eyes at the idea of another ‘horse saved my life’ memoir—until Lay Me Down, the equine protagonist of *Chosen by a Horse*, flat-out refused to get into Susan Richards’ trailer. That moment, narrated with perfect deadpan exasperation by Lorna Raver, hooked me. Raver’s performance is masterclass in restraint; she doesn’t over-emote during Richards’ darker confessions (like her struggle with alcohol or the shame of past mistakes), letting the words land with quiet devastation. The audiobook’s pacing mirrors the story’s themes: slow, sometimes plodding, but deliberate. Richards’ descriptions of horse behavior—ear flicks, tense muscles, the way Lay Me Down ‘holds her breath’ around humans—are so vivid you’ll swear you can hear hooves in the background. That said, the middle act drags a bit with repetitive training setbacks, and Richards’ occasional tangents into horse industry politics (while important) disrupt the emotional momentum. And while Raver nails the narrative voice, her male character voices can feel stiff—though, to be fair, the men in this story are mostly one-dimensional villains or well-meaning but clueless bystanders. What saves it is the honesty: Richards never pretends Lay Me Down ‘fixed’ her, or that their bond erased her flaws. Instead, she offers something rarer—a story about how love, even the four-legged kind, is work. And sometimes, the work *is* the love.