Jump!

Jilly Cooper returns to horses in a fabulously entertaining romp through the world of jump racing. Etta Bancroft - sweet, kind, still beautiful - adores racing and harbours a crush on one of its stars, the handsome, high-handed owner-trainer Rupert Campbell-Black. When her bullying husband dies, Etta's selfish, ambitious children drag her from her lovely Dorset home to live in a hideous modern bungalow in the Cotswold village of Willowwood. Etta's life changes when, in the snow in nearby woods, she finds a horribly mutilated filly, which she names Mrs Wilkinson and nurses back to health. The filly charms everyone in the village, then tests reveal her to be a spectacularly well-bred racehorse. After a nail-biting court case, she is awarded to Etta, thus ensuring the lasting and vengeful enmity of her former trainer and owner. A village syndicate is formed to put the filly into training, consisting of a riotous mix of local characters, who set off to the races in a minibus clankingwith bottles. Ridden by Rupert's delectable god-daughter, Amber, Mrs Wilkinson captivates vast crowds as she progresses from point-to-point to major races and brings fame and fortune to the syndicate, until, at last, she is entered in the Grand National. Can she be the first mare in over fifty years, and Amber the first woman ever, to win this mighty race? In "Jump!" you will meet rich, capricious owners, obsessive trainers, gallant stable lads and lasses and tough, brave jockeys; you will fall in love with the horses, and above all with Mrs Wilkinson herself - hilarious, heroic and gutsy, she will gallop into your heart forever.