by Alan Gold, Sally Harrison and Don Weller

The lavish new coffee table book, Pride in the Dust , is a history of cutting. It is for everyone who admires what a horse can do. This lively, factual, humorous and sometimes wild book is the story of horses, cattle, people and the western culture, researched and written by Sally Harrison and Alan Gold of Arlington, Texas. It is also a picture book with photos by Don Weller of Oakley, Utah, depicting the lives of cutting horses and the humans involve with them. The images span from foal through futurity and from working round-up to the show arena.

Pride in the Dust is a big book, 11" x 11" with 224 pages and 157 color images in three photo essays on cutting. The text is full of quotes from old-timers to modern trainers, and it's highly illustrated. It looks at the Cowboy Reunion of 1898, early ranching in Texas, the cowboys, the early cutting horses, competition, old-time trainers, early selection and breeding. Then it turns to athleticism, conformation, the brains, heart and personality of the cutting horse, and the challenges and rewards of their riders.

Award-winning novelist Tom McGuane wrote the foreword. At the other end of this great journey, there is an appendix which diagrams foundation bloodlines, lists top horses, sires, riders and breeders, plus a chart of open and non-pro NCHA Futurity and World Champions.

(Softcover, color photos, diagrams, 224pgs)