The following version of the novel was used to create this study guide: Gruen, Sara. Riding Lessons. HarperCollins e-books, October 13, 2009. Kindle.

In the novel Riding Lessons by Sara Gruen, Annemarie Zimmer Aldrich’s life takes a triple punch when she loses her job, is left by her husband, and learns her father is suffering with ALS. Annemarie believes these bad changes are just follow-ups to a riding accident she had nineteen years earlier that killed her favorite horse and badly injured her. Annemarie and her daughter, Eva, go back to her parents’ riding school in New Hampshire. Annemarie finds a horse at a rescue center with the same brindled markings as Harry and begins an obsession that the horse is Harry’s brother, a horse who was allegedly killed in a trailering accident.

At 18, Annemarie and her horse, Highland Harry, were contenders for the Olympic team when Harry broke his leg on impact when he landed after the last jump at a major competition. There was no way to correct the damage, and he was euthanized. Annemarie’s neck was broken, and she endured months of physical therapy to be able to walk again. After her recovery was complete, Annemarie married Roger (a man her parents did not like) and moved away from New Hampshire. She made a life for herself that did not involve riding or horses. She always felt as if she had broken her parents’ hearts.

Returning to New Hampshire 19 years later, Annemarie tries to make up for the years she has avoided her parents by trying to manage the riding school so that her mother can spend more time with her father. Instead, Annemarie angers a boarder who moves her five horses to a different stable. She also forgets to order hay and supplies until they are almost out, causing her to have to resort to alternate suppliers who charge exorbitant fees.

Meanwhile, Annemarie is distracted by a brindled horse that her old boyfriend, Dan Garibaldi, found in a kill pen at an auction. She believes he looks and acts just like Harry. When she learns that Harry did have a full brother, but that horse was killed in a trailering accident, Annemarie decides he is indeed Harry’s brother, Highland Hurrah. The horse had been scanned for a microchip, but none was found. Annemarie reasons that because he is 17 years old, he might have been chipped with an older model chip and convinces Dan to find an old scanner so they can identify the horse.

It is determined that the horse is Highland Hurrah. Determined to keep him from being taken from her, Annemarie dyes Hurrah’s coat to hide his unique color, an act that makes her appear guilty of trying to hide him. About the same time, Annemarie’s father dies. Her mother admits to the police that she helped her husband, who had been quickly deteriorating, die by suicide. The police are not sure if they will investigate the death or not.

Annemarie is investigated for her role in Hurrah’s alleged death. It is determined Hurrah’s owner tried to kill him by arranging an accident in which his horse trailer ran into a propane tank and exploded. Hurrah, however, escaped the trailer. His owner burned another horse as a body double for Hurrah so he could collect the $1.25 million insurance policy he had on the horse. Annemarie was not charged, but Hurrah was taken from her.

In her grief, from her father’s death and the loss of Hurrah, Annemarie admitted to her mother what a mess she had made of the stable’s finances. Her mother believed they would have to sell the school, but Annemarie decided to invest the money she received from the sale of the house in which she lived with Roger into the school. Meanwhile, Dan surprised Annemarie by buying Hurrah at auction. Annemarie begins working as the instructor at the riding school and rides Hurrah again, the first time she has ridden since her accident.