The Black Stallion

Farley depicts Alec as the embodiment of a risk taker. Alec comes by this naturally, he travels by boat alone across two oceans to spend the summer with his uncle, and then sails home. Alec invariably jumps at the chance to take difficult, often dangerous risks. Instead of waiting for a lifeboat, he rushes to release the trapped Black. Alec pulls away from the Irish crew on the desert island, refusing to leave without the stallion, then risks diving beneath the flailing horse to cinch him. Throughout the novel, he approaches the horse to calm him when he is out of control.

More than once, Alec pays for his decisions. In releasing the horse, Alec is knocked off the ship into the raging ocean. While trying to bring the Black aboard the rescue ship, Alec’s leg is severely injured. Training the Black in darkness at Belmont, the reins bloody Alec’s hands. On another ride, he faints, and the adults place him on the track to recover. A total novice racing the greatest horses of the day, Alec slides sideways at the beginning of the match race and nearly loses his mount.

While many of Alec’s risky decisions have immediately painful, negative consequences, Farley points out that the ultimate rewards of each justify them. When the Black pushes Alec into the ocean, he becomes the only human survivor of the shipwreck. His late-night rides at Belmont, always dangerous and physically demanding, convince adults to intervene and get the Black into the match race. Farley intentionally depicts Alec, a boy from a genial, docile background, as someone who makes miraculous, exciting, and life-changing accomplishments because he is willing to take risks. The author contrasts Alec, who plays high speed tag with the Black in the meadow, with Whiff and Bill, his risk-averse friends, linger fearfully in the barn, as if to say, “Nothing ventured, nothing gained.”

Farley begins the narrative with what most people in Alec’s position would consider the end of an adventure: he is sailing home after spending the summer riding horses in Bombay. Alec quickly learns his exciting summer is only the prelude to many greater adventures. From surviving the shipwreck, to escaping the island, to bringing the Black to New York, to riding at breakneck speed in the pitch darkness at Belmont, and challenging champion racehorses in a match race, Alec lives multiple adventures, each complimenting and building up to the next. Farley wants readers to know that even the end of the book does not mean the end of the adventure. He hints at this when Alec refuses to sell the Black to the owner of Cyclone, saying, “You’re going to be hearing a lot more about this fella” (197).

Farley opens multiple avenues for sequels in the narrative and he took advantage of them. He wrote more than 20 Black Stallion and directly derivative titles, greatly expanding the Black’s backstory as well as the stories of his offspring. Nearing the end of his life, Farley included his son, Stephen, as co-author of his last Black Stallion sequel. Clearly, the author intended for the adventures of the Black Stallion to continue even after his creator’s death. Farley’s ultimate goal in authoring all the books was not to see how far he could milk a creative idea. Rather, he intended to demonstrate the truth of a life-lesson from the original book: one may think an adventure is over when it is really just beginning.