LIHU‘E — While recovering from a bout of breast cancer, Leslie Tribolet began thinking about her white Arabian horse, Danny, and his mysterious past that led him from Texas to Arizona and eventually to Kaua‘i’s North Shore. Tribolet and Danny
LIHU‘E — While recovering from a bout of breast cancer, Leslie Tribolet began thinking about her white Arabian horse, Danny, and his mysterious past that led him from Texas to Arizona and eventually to Kaua‘i’s North Shore.
Tribolet and Danny crossed paths more than a decade ago when she visited a horse broker in Arizona. With no interest in buying an Arabian horse because “Arabians are kind of crazy,” Tribolet visited the stable to look at a different horse.
When she caught sight of the white Arabian horse standing proudly in his stable, Tribolet practically bought him on the spot.
But the horse’s past remained a mystery to Tribolet — he didn’t have papers, or even a name. She named him Danny, but there was something different about him.
“He was a nervous nelly every time he went outside of the stable,” Tribolet said. “I took him along a dry river bed. There were a lot of quails that liked to hide in the bushes. When a quail jumped out, he jumped six feet sideways.”
This was the first of many clues that Danny may have been trained as a show horse who knew nothing about life outside a stable.
As Tribolet began dreaming about Danny’s previous life in Texas, she imagined Danny lived as an award-winning show horse that was sold by a jealous husband without the consent of his wife, who deeply loved Danny.
As the basis of her book, Tribolet started writing all of Danny’s adventures — including how he met his girlfriend, Star, a fellow Arabian horse, and their move from Arizona to Hawai‘i where they traveled across the Pacific Ocean in a Boeing 747.
Tribolet and Danny settled in Kilauea, next door to Silver Falls Ranch.
The story is told entirely from Danny’s perspective, and the author wrote it with pre-teens in mind.
While Tribolet never intended to publish her work, friends who read bits and pieces of her story couldn’t get enough of “Danny’s Tale.”
“I gave it to neighbors, and they kept asking for more chapters,” Tribolet said. “It would be a great book for someone to read to a child. These are short chapters, so it would encourage a young child to read.”
Tribolet will be holding a book signing at 2 p.m. Saturday at Borders Books, Music & Movies in Lihu‘e. Copies of the book will be available at Borders and Aloha Feed & Supplies in Lihu‘e.
