When Emma Hudelson happened upon grainy archive footage of Sky Watch — the four-time Grand Open champion saddlebred — at Lexington’s American Saddlebred Museum in 2019, she hadn’t ridden a horse in over a decade. Watching the famed horse perform, she was transfixed.
Back at her Indianapolis home overlooking the White River, Hudelson started doing intensive research on Sky Watch and got serious about writing his biography. It was the early days of the pandemic. Earlier this month — nearly 23 years since the titular horse was euthanized — , Hudelson’s first book, “Sky Watch: Chasing an American Saddlebred Story” was published through University Press of Kentucky.
For those unfamiliar, show horses like Sky Watch aren’t racehorses. Instead of jockeys and running 440 yards at lightning speed, Sky Watch and other show horses compete in categories like the three-gaited and five-gaited divisions to show off their beauty and elegance. A typical horse walk is a four-gait. American Saddlebred shows require training that enhances the three gaits—walk, trot, and canter—that all horses perform naturally and adds two specialized gaits unique to the Saddlebred.
In the words of Hudelson, as described in her memoir, “The blue ribbon goes to the best entertainer in the ring. Every horse can trot, but not every horse’s trot is worth watching.”
In the 1980s, horse shows were a cultural phenomenon, drawing huge crowds to state fairs and even venues such as Madison Square Garden in New York. No horse got more attention during that time period than Sky Watch, who won 12 world titles overall and four World Grand Championships, the most prestigious award for a Saddlebred.
Readers of “Sky Watch: Chasing an American Saddlebred Story” will find, however, that it isn’t just Sky Watch’s story being told in the book. While Hudelson first set out to simply write the famed saddlebred’s biography, she found much of her own story could be intertwined to not only add a personal touch, but to highlight the impact her love of horses had on her life.
As a girl Hudelson grew up in both Indianapolis and Virginia, but horses were a constant in her life. Her mother, Martha Faesi, was an equestrian and enrolled Hudelson in horseback riding lessons when she was 7 years old. She competed in her first competition as a young girl in 1994, four years before Sky Watch was retired to the Kentucky Horse Park in Lexington.
Even then, Hudelson said she — and most other horse lovers — knew about Sky Watch.
When she was a teenager in the early 2000s, Hudelson struggled with depression and drinking, which pushed horses out of her life. After getting sober and on the road to recovery in 2009, it would be another nine years before she began showing and riding American Saddlebreds again in 2018.
“Woven in is a memoir about the way horses have brought me back to myself over the years,” said Hudelson about her new book. “I got away from horses and my life changed for the worse, and I went through a really tough time. I came back to horses having found some recovery and healing, and it wasn’t until then that I felt fully like myself.”
“Sky Watch: Chasing an American Saddlebred Story” may not seem like a go-to read for those not interested in horses, but the story is also about a personal wellness journey. The author’s background as director of Butler University’s Writing for Wellness program has given her a knack for sharing her personal struggles through written word, and helping others embark on that same healing process.
“In writing the book, I came to understand how much horses hold me together,” Hudelson said. “As an adolescent, they gave me purpose, belonging and responsibility. When I lost horses, I lost all that, and it took several years of hard work in recovery to get to a place where I was ready to ride again. As soon as I got back in the saddle, I rediscovered that same sense of purpose, belonging and responsibility.”
Listen to Emma Hudelson read from her book:
Mirror Indy reporter Breanna Cooper covers arts and culture. Contact her at breanna.cooper@mirrorindy.org. Follow her on X @BreannaNCooper.
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