King of the Wind
by Marguerite Henry
Summary
Agba, a mute stable boy in the Sultan of Morocco's stables, cares for a foal born with contradictory markings, a lucky white heel and an unlucky wheat ear on his chest, that the other grooms take as an omen of misfortune. The colt, named Sham, grows into a horse of obvious speed and spirit despite the superstition surrounding him, and when the Sultan sends horses as a gift to King Louis XV of France, Agba goes along as Sham's groom under strict orders to stay with the horse until its death. In France the pair are mocked and mistreated, Sham reduced to pulling carts, until a Quaker buys him and brings him to England, where a string of hard owners follow before Sham and Agba finally come under the Earl of Godolphin. Even there Sham starts as a workhorse, until he fights off a rival stallion for the favor of a mare named Roxana, a victory that embarrasses the Earl enough to have them both banished to a remote fen for two years, Agba never once leaving Sham's side through any of it. Recalled at last, Sham is discovered to have sired an exceptional racehorse, and his sons go on to win enough at Newmarket to save the Earl's fortune, establishing Sham as the Godolphin Arabian, one of the three stallions from which nearly every modern thoroughbred descends, Agba's quiet, unwavering loyalty finally rewarded alongside the horse's own.
It is an adventure story told largely through Agba's loyal, wordless devotion, and its long chain of setbacks before Sham's eventual triumph gives it real narrative momentum for young horse lovers, who tend to stay with the book precisely because Agba's faith in Sham never wavers even when every human around them does.
Historical Context & Significance
King of the Wind won the 1949 Newbery Medal for a book Rand McNally published in 1948, illustrated by Wesley Dennis, Henry's regular collaborator on her horse novels including Misty of Chincoteague. That year's honor books were Holling C. Holling's Seabird, Louise Rankin's Daughter of the Mountains, Ruth S. Gannett's My Father's Dragon and Arna Bontemps's Story of the Negro.
Henry fictionalized a documented figure, the real Godolphin Arabian, whose actual bloodline runs through the majority of thoroughbred racehorses alive today, and the book remains one of her best known titles alongside Misty of Chincoteague. The real horse's line runs through the female side of most modern Thoroughbred pedigrees, and the 1990 film adaptation, with Navin Chowdhry as Agba, brought Henry's fictional biography of him to a new audience.