This is so.... Victorian. I mean that as a value-neutral descriptor, like, it was in fact written during the Victorian period, so this totally makes sense, but I don't think I properly processed that fact before I started reading the book. All these horses are so Good and Cheery and Hardworking, and they're constantly going on about how they don't mind doing Good Honest Work so long as they aren't mistreated, and they always do their absolute best even when they are mistreated, and there's several incidents of drunkenness followed by Long Angry Jeremiads On The Wickedness Of Drinking and appeals to shut down saloons, and it's all very... quaint. (I mean, it rises above pure boring Puritan morality because quite often Sewell's angry about structural issues—like, people who mistreat their horses just because of fashion are jackasses, but the cabbie who's driving his horse hard as hell because otherwise he won't be able to feed his family is to be pitied just as much as his horse. But it's still all very preachy, heh.)
I think this book snuck onto my list because Ursula Le Guin mentioned in some interview that it was one of her favorite books as a kid, and I was like "huh that sure is one of those classics I somehow have never read," and also it was free on Gutenberg. And it's fine for what it is, but other stuff from the era has probably aged a little better for my tastes (e.g. I still find Alice in Wonderland delightful to read). I'm spoiled I guess; I got to be a kiddo reading Talking Animal Novels when Watership Down and David Clement-Davies ruled the roost, which meant "wolves have an anime psychic battle about nuclear war" was considered a viable Animal Book Plot, which is just objectively cooler. For one example. (Damn The Sight slapped so hard.)
...man, I can't wait for the generation of kids in 150 years to be like "yawn, psychic anime wolf battle, so passe, so quaint, 2/5"
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