Riders (novel)

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Riders
Riders - Jilly Cooper.png
First edition
Author Jilly Cooper
CountryUnited Kingdom
LanguageEnglish
Genre Romance novel
PublisherArlington Books Ltd.
Publication date
1985
Media type Hardback, Paperback and Audiobook
ISBN 0-552-15055-X
OCLC 51914056
Followed byRivals 

Riders is a 1985 novel written by the English author Jilly Cooper. It is the first of a series of romance novels known as the Rutshire Chronicles, which are set in the fictional English county of Rutshire. The story focuses on the lives of a group of top show jumping stars and follows the ups and downs of both their personal and professional lives. It was turned into a television film, Riders (1993), directed by Gabrielle Beaumont for Anglia Television and broadcast on the ITV Network.

Contents

On 5 November 2019 BBC News included Riders on its list of the 100 most inspiring novels. [1]

Plot

Set against the backdrop of the English Cotswolds countryside, Riders follows the fortunes of a group of fame and money hungry show jumping stars.

Jake Lovell, the gypsy-born hero of the novel, is a brilliant horseman desperately seeking revenge for years of bullying at the hands of the glamorous but brutish aristocrat Rupert Campbell-Black. With the help of his rich debutante wife, Tory Maxwell, he is able to set himself up his own yard and begins building a reputation on the show-jumping circuit. Meanwhile, Rupert is content living the jet-set lifestyle with best friend Billy Lloyd-Foxe, plus a string of beautiful women, horses and dogs. Meeting his beautiful wife, Helen Macaulay, does little to curb his promiscuity and he eventually falls back into a life of parties, alcohol, and casual sex.

When Jake and Rupert meet again for the first time since school, old rivalries are reawakened as they fight it out to prove who is the greater horseman and, perhaps more importantly, the greater lover. Along the way, Cooper gives us a peek into the lives of this close-knit community of tops riders, their horses, grooms and families. We see the highs and lows of life in the equestrian world, but who will eventually come out on top in the final showdown at the Los Angeles Olympics.

Cover

When first published in 1985 the book's cover, somewhat controversially, depicted “a man’s hand resting intimately on the seat of a woman’s jodhpurs.” The 2015 30th anniversary edition's toned-down cover artwork moved the male hand from where it was firmly gripping the female rider's bottom to a much higher position nearer to her hip, generating some backlash from fans. [2]

Related Research Articles

Show jumping is a part of a group of English riding equestrian events that also includes eventing, hunters, and equitation. Jumping classes are commonly seen at horse shows throughout the world, including the Olympics. Sometimes shows are limited exclusively to jumpers. Sometimes jumper classes are offered in conjunction with other English-style events. Sometimes, show jumping is but one division of a very large, all-breed competition that includes a very wide variety of disciplines. Jumping classes may be governed by various national horse show sanctioning organizations, such as the United States Equestrian Federation or the British Showjumping Association. International competitions are governed by the rules of the International Federation for Equestrian Sports.

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<span class="mw-page-title-main">Jilly Cooper</span> English author

Jilly Cooper, CBE, is an English author. She began her career as a journalist and wrote numerous works of non-fiction before writing several romance novels, the first of which appeared in 1975. She is most famous for writing the Rutshire Chronicles.

The Rutshire Chronicles is a series of romantic novels by Jilly Cooper. The stories tell tales of mainly British upper-class families, as well as the show-jumping and polo crowd, in numerous different sexually charged scenarios, often laced with adultery, illegitimate children, scandal, and sometimes, even death. They are linked by several recurring characters, chiefly Rupert Campbell-Black, and are set in the fictional English county of Rutshire.

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Hunt seat is a style of forward seat riding commonly found in North American horse shows. Along with dressage, it is one of the two classic forms of English riding. The hunt seat is based on the tradition of fox hunting. Hunt seat competition in North America includes both flat and over fences for show hunters, which judge the horse's movement and form, and equitation classes, which judge the rider's ability both on the flat and over fences. The term hunt seat may also refer to any form of forward seat riding, including the kind seen in show jumping and eventing.

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Rodney Jenkins is a former show jumping rider and member of the United States Equestrian Team (USET), inducted into the United States Show Jumping Hall of Fame. He rode hunters and jumpers competitively from the early 1960s to the late 1980s, winning a record 70 Grand Prix-level competitions. After retiring from the show ring, he became a race horse trainer.

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Riders, also called Jilly Cooper's Riders, is a British television film of 1993 based on Jilly Cooper's 1985 book of the same name in the Rutshire Chronicles series.

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The Man Who Made Husbands Jealous is a British television film of 1997 based on Jilly Cooper's 1993 book of the same name in the Rutshire Chronicles series, directed by Robert Knights and produced by Sarah Lawson. The title role of Lysander Hawkley is played by Stephen Billington.

On 5 November 2019, the BBC published a list of novels selected by a panel of six writers and critics, who had been asked to choose 100 English language novels "that have had an impact on their lives". The resulting list of "100 novels that shaped our world", called the "100 'most inspiring' novels" by BBC News, was published by the BBC to kick off a year of celebrating literature.

<i>Mystic</i> (TV series) 2020 television series

Mystic is a New Zealand environmental teen drama television series produced by Libertine Pictures and Slim film+television for CBBC, TVNZ and the Seven Network.

Rivals is an upcoming television series made for Disney+. It is an adaptation of the 1988 Jilly Cooper novel of the same name. It is set to star an ensemble cast including David Tennant, Aidan Turner, Katherine Parkinson, Lisa McGrillis, Alex Hassell, Emily Atack and Danny Dyer.

References

  1. "100 'most inspiring' novels revealed by BBC Arts". BBC News . 5 November 2019. Retrieved 10 November 2019. The reveal kickstarts the BBC's year-long celebration of literature.
  2. Flood, Alison (3 June 2015). "Jilly Cooper's Riders: why the toned-down cover?". The Guardian. Retrieved 7 May 2020.