Prologue: unexpected kindness -- Horse crazy: girls and the lives of horses -- U.S. horse history from colonization to recreation: working for men, playing with girls -- Dreaming of horses: the pony book genre and other horse stories in the mid-twentieth century -- The past that is still present: stories from my riding life in the western United States, 1970s to 1990s -- Ways of thinking about normal in the United States: horse-crazy (white) girls in the late twentieth century -- Horsey girls: heteronormativity and otherness -- Horses: life, death, and rescue -- Epilogue: the boys who love ponies.