A multi-stranded love story, it tells of the lives of a tight circle of star riders who move from show to show, united by raging ambition, bitter rivalry and the terror of failure. The super-heroes are Jake Lovell, a half-gypsy orphan who wears gold earrings, handles a horse, or a woman, with effortless skill, and is consumed with hate for promiscuous upper-class cad, Ruppert Campbell-Black, who has no intention to be faithful to his wife Helen, but is outraged when she runs away with another rider. 

          Set in a tense, heroic world of show-jumping, Jilly Cooper’s novel moves from home-county gymkhanas through a riot of horsey events all over the world, culminating in the high drama of the Los Angeles Olympics.