Photo Finish (14 page)

Stevie let out the breath she’d been holding. “Who won?” she asked. “I couldn’t tell.”

“I couldn’t either,” Lisa said.

Just then the TV flashed the words “photo finish.”

“That means it was so close that the judges have to look at a photograph of the finish to decide the winner,” Carole said, remembering the fact from one of her books.

The girls waited, fidgeting with suspense. Finally, endless moments later, the TV announcer said, “The winner of the Belmont Stakes is—Monkeyshines!”

“Yay, Monk!” The Saddle Club cried in one voice.

B
ONNIE
B
RYANT
is the author of more than a hundred books about horses, including The Saddle Club series, The Saddle Club Super Editions, the Pony Tails series, and Pine Hollow, which follows the Saddle Club girls into their teens. She has also written novels and movie novelizations under her married name, B. B. Hiller.

Ms. Bryant began writing The Saddle Club in 1986. Although she had done some riding before that, she intensified her studies then and found herself learning right along with her characters Stevie, Carole, and Lisa. She claims that they are all much better riders than she is.

Ms. Bryant was born and raised in New York City. She still lives there, in Greenwich Village, with her two sons.