An invitation to spend the summer on Grandma Bates' horse farm leaves Elizabeth Harter with mixed feelings. In the past eleven years, Elizabeth has been near a horse only a handful of times, and she hasn't seen her grandmother even once. She'd rather spend the summer in New York studying water-color painting. Yet, this might be just the opportunity she'd hoped for to learn about her mother, an accomplished artist and horsewoman, who died when Elizabeth was very young. But Grandma Bates seem more interested in the horses she raises for harness racing than in her granddaughter, and she won't talk about her daughter. Elizabeth feels more and more like an outsider until Carrie, her mother's childhood friend, and Maggie's Last Chance, a spirited filly, draw her into her mother's world and she slowly begins to learn not only about her mother, but about her grandmother - and herself.

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