Susan Friedland leads a horse-centric life sharing her equestrian passion via her website and as a freelancer for equestrian publications. She founded Saddle Seeks Horse, a lifestyle blog featuring product reviews, interviews and inspiration for the everyday equestrian in 2013. Each month Saddle Seeks Horse reaches thousands of horse enthusiasts around the world with original content. Saddle Seeks Horse partners with equine-related brands via sponsored posts and product reviews.
The book Strands of Hope was born out of a single blog post on www.saddleseekshorse.com that routinely receives high traffic since it was published back in 2015. The post “How to Grieve the Loss of a Horse in 10 Not-So-Easy Steps” ranks on page one for the Google search “how to grieve the loss of a horse.”
“It had been five years since I lost my heart horse, DC, when I wrote that blog post,” says Friedland. “I had finally processed my grief and enough time had gone by, so I could share my experiences in order to help other equestrians. I had no idea I would hear from people around the world via email and private messages! They found my post, and it helped them in a time of sadness.”
A memorable email was from a mother in South Africa whose daughter had unexpectedly lost her pony. The mother thanked Friedland for helping her feel less alone, and a seed of an idea to write a book took root. Friedland contemplated a project to share her journey and the journey of fellow equestrians who have navigated the loss of a horse.
“Initially I resisted the urge to bring this book to life because I’m not a psychologist, a minister, or grief counselor,” continues Friedland. “I’m just a horse girl who knows what it’s like to receive one of those dreaded phone calls from a barn manager. Dozens of books exist about how to grieve a pet, but a horse is really so much more than a pet–losing a horse is a unique experience and pain. There’s really nothing quite like Strands of Hope on the market. It won’t ‘fix’ anyone, but my hope is readers will feel some comfort during a dark time.”
Strands of Hope contains six interviews with people who have had various types of loss from losing a foal, to saying goodbye to a childhood pony owned and loved for 20 years. There’s even a story of a show jumper whose loss is the death of a dream—her horse had to be retired young due to an underlying health issue.
The Strands of Hope paperback is 100 pages, and both the print and ebook versions contain a resource list, template for how to write a horse eulogy, and ideas to commemorate a dearly departed horse. Both versions are available in the United Kingdom, Germany, France, Spain and Japan. The ebook is also available in Canada, Australia, Mexico and Brazil.
For more information about the book or author, contact susan@saddleseekshorse.com.
