The story is set in England "earlier than 1931," when its heroine, Velvet, is fourteen. Velvet lives in a small village in the southern part of the Midlands. A lover of horses, she inherits five horses and wins a sixth in a lottery. She rides this sixth horse, a piebald, to victory in the Grand National. The race and the investigation that follows take her to other parts of England. The worldwide publicity and attention make her realize how pleasant anonymity is.