The importance of purpose |
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Prava’s Steeplechase Adventure, conceived by Woodville Award-winner Chris ‘Reggie’ Williams, authored by 2019 co-champion Michael Mitchell, is hot for the holidays |
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Wondering what to get the horsemen (or their kids) that have everything this Christmas? ‘Prava’ is the perfect feel-good solution for the season |
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Co-champion jockey in 2019, Michael Mitchell is a most unexpected 21st century Dr. Seuss.
Woodville Award winner in 2019 and seven-time sheriff’s deputy of the year, Chris “Reggie” Williams is an unlikely collaborator.
The duo took a 37-second interaction between the two of them and a feisty young hurdler and have turned it into what they hope will become a beloved children's book series.
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*** BREAKING NEWS - ‘Prava’ heads to Johns Hopkins *** |
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Exciting late news at press time: NSA board member Mike Hankin reports that “Prava’s Steeplechase Adventure” would be spreading the theme of hopefulness and friendship at a place that could use it the most.
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The book, which debuted two weeks ago at number 4 on Amazon’s competitive “new children’s release” list, features a simple, easy-to-follow storyline tracing the adventure of a racehorse on the National Steeplechase circuit. Illustrated by children around the world, the story is based on the universal themes of friendship, inclusiveness and self-confidence. (Purchase here: https://smile.amazon.com/Pravas-Steeplechase-Adventure-Adventures/dp/1736067109/)
Early reviewers call it a welcome relief in this year of distancing and fear, a perfect antidote to everything that’s wrong with 2020. “A phenomenal book for kids,” writes Amazon reviewer Mrs. P. “This book is catered to kids through their eyes. The illustrations are the cutest which kids can relate to, because they drew them. A great gift for the holidays. Love it!”
Another, Amanda, calls "Prava" the cutest idea ever. "I love everything about this book – the idea behind it, the story line, the fact that different children, of different abilities, illustrated it. I love that the horse looks different on every page. I appreciate that the book benefits charity with every copy sold. My littles absolutely love it. Go Prava!”
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Meet the writer – Michael Mitchell |
Mikey Mitchell, 29, was born in Warwickshire, England. He’s been riding on the U.S. circuit since 2014, full-time since 2017. (Maggie Kimmitt photo)
Mitchell has never written a book before, but he says, actually, it was fairly easy once Williams came up with the general idea. “It was quite simple as I just put on paper the daily routine of what is required (of a horse) at the races,” Mitchell explains. “The story line was changed a little to suit the audience, and to provide life lessons and a better story.
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Mitchell aboard Ann Jackson's Flash Jackson, with Williams on the shank, in 2018.
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And it’s not just verified purchasers on Amazon that are gushing about “Prava.” National Steeplechase Association brass are on track with the project.
“When Reggie told me about their idea for the children’s book, it rang so many bells for me,” says NSA president Al Griffin. “Those two individuals represent the heart and soul of steeplechasing.
“Their message is multi-layered and not contrived. We needed this kind of ‘feel good’ in this most difficult season.
“Anyone who hears this story will be uplifted.”
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Pravalaguna and her winning connections, including jockey Paul Townend and owner Mike Hankin, of Bruton Street, after winning the Peapack Filly & Mare Stakes at Far Hills in 2019.
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NSA board member Mike Hankin, real-life owner of the real-life Pravalaguna, the main character in the book, agrees. “Reggie’s work with kids’ sports has been impressive, and for good reason – he knows what appeals to kids,” Hankin says. “He took Michael’s words and combined them with an opportunity for kids to express themselves through art.
“We’re thrilled to support the effort.”
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Williams says he was on the Saratoga backstretch in August, working a few days for trainer Jack Fisher. Fisher assistant Sandra Webb handed Williams a shank. "Sandra was watching me graze Pravalaguna -- Prava -- and she said it looked like we were having a love affair. The filly was quiet and happy, just as serene as could be.”
She didn’t run well the next day (photo of Pravalaguna returning to Williams after the AP Smithwick. Bernie Dalton had the ride. ©Tod Marks), but the scene burned into Williams’ mind, something he linked up a week later when he had an encounter with another Fisher horse that triggered the book collaboration. |
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“Prava’s Steeplechase Adventure” is based on real-life events, but writer Michael Mitchell and project creator Chris “Reggie” Williams took literary license. |
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Pravalaguna wasn’t actually the horse Williams and Mitchell were singing to in the paddock at Saratoga. That was Robert LaPenta’s Fast Car. (photo of Williams, Mitchell and Fast Car in Saratoga ©Tod Marks)
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“But, ‘Fast Car’ would totally confuse most of your readers if it was a book about a steeplechase horse. They’d see the name Fast Car and expect, well, they’d be looking for a car,” Williams explains.
So they adopted the persona of another horse in Jack Fisher’s summer, 2020 training string. “The other reason to switch to a mare rather than a gelding was the ability to have her have a foal, and keep the storyline going that way,” he says.
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Williams e-mailed digital photos to kids around the world seeking drawings and art to illustrate “Prava.” “See if you can notice silks and symbols,” he says. “Gill Johnston’s horse is leading in one drawing, and of course Prava has the Bruton Street colors. (photo, below, of Pravalaguna in Saratoga - Williams on the shank and Bernie Dalton in the irons ©Tod Marks)
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“I did sneak in my silks (yellow with a purple ball) on the winning horse in Prava’s big race.
“Jack Fisher’s van, Kate and Bernie Dalton’s, Meriweather Morris’ – you’ll recognize some of them. And I had a boy from Honduras draw Jack Fisher’s trademark peppermint treat he always has for his horses. There’s a lot you’ll see in the drawings if you pay attention.”
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Some youth artists added their own flourish. “One older boy from Ghana, I sent him a photo I’d taken of a Jonathan Sheppard horse getting a bath (on the backstretch) at Saratoga,” Williams says. “A girl was hosing the horse off, and there was a little shed in the background, and a corner of the barn on the side. |
“The artist asked if he could draw himself in there as the groom. He’s never seen Saratoga, of course, and never been to a horse race, heck, he may have never seen a horse. But he drew a perfect bath scene.
“It’s him, in maybe a cowboy hat, holding the horse (though there’s no shank) and spraying her with a hose. He lined the bottom of the page with bubbles since Mitchell wrote, in Prava’s voice, how she was ‘playing with the soap and bubbles.’
“And he asked if he could change the color of the shed to the Ghana flag colors – red and yellow. There’s a lot to these pictures which you could imagine were just simple kids’ drawings.”
(Photo of children giving a pony a bath at a T.C. Williams Sports Camp, courtesy of Reggie Williams)
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“I got this perfect and wonderful three-legged horse that looked a lot like a fox. I was bound and determined to use that drawing,” Williams says.
They ended up using the fox-horse between a chestnut with a red mane and tail – and four knee-high beige stockings and a skewbald horse with a blue mane and a red tail on the page about Prava’s multi-national horse friends.
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Artists – ages 6 to 18, used a variety of mediums. Crayons were the most popular choice, others using colored pencils, pens, and one even used what looks like acrylic or oil paint, Williams says. “We used bits and pieces of some of the drawings to make each page. The clouds on one page came from a little girl in Mexico. The (page designer) photoshopped a glow behind the cameras on the winner’s circle page." |
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“(Fisher assistant) Sandra Webb wanted me to take Fast Car to the paddock the next week” in the Walsh novice stake at Saratoga, Williams says. “Sandra said the horse needed constant attention.
“On the way from the barn, I was talking and singing and whistling to the horse, whatever to keep him calm (photo of Fast Car and Williams in the paddock for the Walsh ©Tod Marks). The judge called for riders up, and Michael Mitchell took over for me, 'cause he knew the horse from riding for Jack at the farm.
“I noticed immediately he was talking to Fast Car like he was actually the horse, seeing things through his eyes. We went around the circle around the tree, and Michael said ‘oh, there’s that security guard. He was here last week. I’m surprised he hasn’t gone home yet!’
“Michael was making it like the horse thought the people just stayed where they were, all the time.
“Right then, right there, I knew there was a children’s book. I decided in those 37 seconds, there’s the theme for the book, and that I’d use my (international) charity to get illustrations from around the world, and that the proceeds would (underprivileged children)."
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Mitchell and Fast Car returning after their win in a allowance hurdle at Saratoga this summer. ©Tod Marks
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Williams cornered Mitchell back at the barn later, saying “I know you thought you were just sitting on a horse just babbling, but I know there’s a children’s book in there. Mikey looked at me and he was like, ‘What? When?’ ”
Mitchell explains. “Most horses are soothed by the sound of humans, it’s a reassuring technique” he likes to use. “Fast Car is a difficult horse to ride, and because I talk to most horses, I talk to him.
“Using your voice is an asset in riding – the topic of conversation or subject matter doesn’t matter.”
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Williams maintains that Mitchell “didn’t realize how he was talking to (Fast Car) would be a perfect set-up for a kids’ story.
“I had my first draft within the week.
“Most people don’t know it, but Michael Mitchell is a genius. He has a brilliant mind. I told him what I thought the story should be, and it barely needed any edit. He just wrote it like it is.
“I sent it to three teachers I know to proofread, and all they did was fix a little punctuation. That’s all.”
As the project progressed, Williams began to recognize a series, not a one-off tale. “We decided to swap out (another Jack Fisher trainee) Pravalaguna for Fast Car. She’s a mare, and could maybe have a foal in the second book, and that foal could race, and that could be the basis for a series.”
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Williams with a copy of "Prava's Steeplechase Adventure"
©Betsy Burke Parker
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They also changed the finish order. “You know the main character always wins in books like this,” Williams explains their decision to have Prava finish second in her big race. “It’s more of a life lesson to appreciate your own efforts, but to also appreciate the accomplishments of someone else.”
As Prava says (thinks) in the story, “I started to pass my friends one by one. We raced around the last turn, and only one friend was in front of me. Michael gave me a reassuring squeeze, and I used all my energy to run as fast as I could.
“Seconds later we crossed the finish line. My friend was a little bit faster and came in first, but I had come in second. Michael was so excited, he cheered, ‘Yippee, we did it! Well done!’
“I was so pleased with my efforts and very proud that my friend won. I was so happy!
“We waited at the finish line and cheered on all my other friends as they finished the race.”
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Meet the creator – Chris ‘Reggie’ Williams |
Thomas Christopher Williams was born and raised in Sperryville, Virginia. Williams, now 52, was first introduced to horses and racing when he was 16 by trainer Pete Aylor and his father, the late Moody Aylor.
His first race meet was Foxfield. There, he met trainers Janet Elliot and Mike Berryman. "Prava" is dedicated the memory of Berryman, who died in January, 2020.
Williams earned the nickname Reggie – as in, Reggie Jackson, when he played league baseball in Rappahannock County as a kid.
He’s a career sheriff’s deputy in Prince William County – seven-time Deputy of the Year, and has been involved with youth mentoring for many years. Two years ago, he established T.C. Williams Youth Sports Camps, a non-profit run for underprivileged children “to discover the inner and out strength you can get from playing sports.”
At 6 feet tall and 300 pounds of weight-lifter’s brawn, Williams’ quiet confidence and soft demeanor make it easy to see how kids – all ages, really – are drawn to him like something of a modern-day pied piper. His charity sports camp idea came from a dream.
“I dreamed I was on an island, playing baseball,” he recalls one dark, quiet night several years ago. Like “Prava,” once Williams conceived it, it happened, and it happened fast. “Two weeks later, we had our first children’s sports camp planned.”
He does wonder sometimes if there’s some master plan, admitting in an interview with the Rappahannock News he actually asked an empty room, out loud – “Why, God, why would you put a book plan in the hands of someone who is not a book reader’?”
Apparently, it was a two-sided conversation, “because God (reminded me), ‘what did you know about sports camps? I put people in place for you’.”
Read more about Williams, who is also the barn manager for the Virginia Gold Cup Races, HERE.
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Williams with Maggie Bryant's Adios Diablo in 2016.
©Douglas Lees
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Williams believes “Prava” has it all – sportsmanship, friendship, unconditional support. The story is breathtaking in its simplicity as well as its complexity. And the modern process for book publishing is unbelievably simple, he says. “It was, literally, 90 days from concept to printing,” Williams explains. “Amazon does it all – they suggest some sizes and binding, and we chose the printing, and a designer friend on the (sheriff’s) force helped us lay it out with the drawings and story.
“Amazon prints each book when they’re ordered. Stores aren’t ordering tons of books they have to buy and then hope they can sell them.”
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Meet the real Prava – Pravalaguna |
Champion trainer in Ireland, Willie Mullins brought five-time jumps winner Pravalaguna to Far Hills last October, winning the distaff hurdle stakes and stamping herself as a future standout for new owner Mike Hankin’s Bruton Street U.S. syndicate.
Pravalaguna was foaled in France in 2012; the bay mare is a granddaughter of champion sire Sadler’s Wells. She raced in Ireland, England and France, winning once on the turf, three times over hurdles and twice over the big ‘chase fences before coming to the U.S. for the Far Hills win.
Fisher got Pravalaguna to the races, twice, at Saratoga this summer. She pulled up in the grade 1 Smithwick on July 23, and was sixth in the grade 1 Turf Writers on Aug. 20. Bernie Dalton was aboard for both starts, but Mitchell worked and schooled the mare often, and Williams handled her enough that it was easy to substitute her for Fast Car when they began conceiving not only one, but a series, of children’s books incorporating steeplechasing and universal themes of sportsmanship and friendship.
Tod Marks photo of Pravalaguna (Paul Townend, up) at Far Hills in 2019
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The last part of the tale tees up for the reader to imagine the future for Prava, making the sequel a natural.
Williams has the outline already – Prava gets married, has a foal, the foal grows up and races, and Prava retires to become a therapy horse for underprivileged children. Mitchell says he on board.
“I have a friend (in the sheriff’s office) that writes romance novels on the side,” Williams says. “So, she’s asking me how come my ‘Prava’ book is a top 10 new release, and hers isn’t.
“I told her, ‘hey, there’s two reasons. One, your book is 502 pages. Mine’s 36.
“And, number two, yours has to make sense. Mine doesn’t. If we need Prava to be happy her friend won the race, that’s how it is. If we need Prava to marry the stallion in the next book, that’s how it is. That’s gives us the theme of ‘family values’ and the importance of parenting, and that’s all I need.
“Kids’ books don’t have to make sense, they need to make magic. We don’t have to explain a stallion actually has 50 or a hundred mares in his book and that he doesn’t marry any of them. That doesn’t matter. What matters is the foal has a mother and a father that are proud of him.”
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Hankin does actually plan to breed Pravalaguna next spring, to a Kentucky stallion he declines to name. “It’s a family secret for now,” Hankin says. |
Pravalaguna in the paddock at Punchestown in Ireland.
Photo courtesy of Mike Hankin
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Meet the inspiration – Fast Car |
A dark bay son of multiple grade 1 winner, and group-placed, Verrazano, Fast Car was foaled in Kentucky in 2016. He hammered down at Keeneland September for $625,000, and made a winning debut – on the turf at Colonial Downs – in 2019.
Fast Car ran over hurdles a couple weeks later at Shawan – fourth, and was third in the 3-year-old hurdle stake at Far Hills in October. He was uninspired – fifth, in his 2020 debut at Middleburg Spring in June, but was impressive winning the maiden special at Virginia Gold Cup two weeks later and an allowance at Saratoga.
The gelding was unplaced in the Michael Walsh novice stake at Saratoga next out. That was the day Williams says the "conversation" between Fast Car and rider Michael Mitchell sparked the notion of a "Steeplechase Adventure" based around the direct observations of a hurdle horse.
(Tod Marks photo of Mitchell and Fast Car in Saratoga in July)
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The art and craft of capturing the children’s market |
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Writing a good children’s book requires the author to keep it simple, though that’s not as simple as it sounds. Books for the youngest children – "Prava" is aimed at ages 4 to 8, though it is a charming read for anybody – incorporate a single thought per page, usually one or two very short, simply constructed sentences.
But there’s got to be room for imagination both for those being read to by parents or mentors and those reading for themselves.
Mitchell writes that Prava and her friends “had dinner then snuggled down on our beds and went to sleep.” The reader – or listener – has to conjure a mental image of what bedtime for horses might look like. As Williams says, most “Prava” readers would have no idea what a horse does when it sleeps.
Mentally, some readers might put Prava on her back in a human bed, or maybe curled up like a dog with her tail wrapped around her nose.
The artist assigned to illustrate that page painted three horses sleeping side by side, with stars overhead. Not one is lying like an anatomically correct equine at rest, but all very clearly happily asleep, and the feeling of peace and happy slumber in a safe place is unmistakable.
Dynamic early reading sets the foundation for a lifelong love relationship with books, something Williams and Mitchell have clearly tapped. Quality children’s literature becomes art in its own right, creative illustrations and brilliantly simple word choice making a multi-dimensional experience.
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A review of "Prava's Steeplechase Adventure" by Erin Norman, age 8 |
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A horse was going to a steeplechase race in a horse trailer with all his friends, and he met with all kinds of different horses from around the country and they all became good friends. At the race, he came in second and one of his best friends won.
I liked it. It was super funny and cool. I liked the story about the horse doing a race and jumping over jumps. It seems really cool. I liked that the horse was treated very nicely - it seems like a very good horse. I liked the drawings - they were really good.
I think some of my friends who are interested in horses would really like this book. I liked it a lot.
(A note from the designer, aka Mom - Erin didn't pick up on Prava being a girl, thus the references to "him" in the book review)
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Fast Car and Michael Mitchell leading the way to the finish line in an allowance race at Saratoga
this past summer.
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