Velvet Brown made history when, against all the odds, she won the Grand National on a horse bought with a raffle ticket. But the years have flown and the Velvet of today is a very different person from that fourteen-year-old girl.
Inspired by Enid Bagnold's classic story National Velvet, Bryan Forbes has written an imaginative sequel, this time set in the highly competitive world of international equestrian events - tests of courage and skill which lead, for the lucky few, to that summit of every rider's ambition, the Olympic Games.
It is a story told on many levels,tracing an ambition passed down through the generations, and the conflicts that ambition produces. Velvet's attempts to relive her own past through Sarah, her young orphaned niece, bring her face to face with what she has become. In this heartwarming account of a woman seeking to find herself again, and a child struggling towards maturity, the author builds to an exciting climax which highlights the enormous pressures demanded of those who attempt to succeed in international sport. International Velvet is now a major MGM film, produced and directed by Bryan Forbes, starring Tatum O'Neal, Christopher Plummer, Anthony Hopkins and Nanette Newman.
