LEEDS — The saga of a Leeds teenager who rode her pony 100 miles in a 24-hour endurance race in California last summer is being retold in a soon-to-be-published book.

As previously reported in St. George News, then-13-year-old Kyla Law and her mother Natalie Law both successfully completed the Tevis Cup horseback ride in July of 2021, starting at Lake Tahoe and ending in Auburn, California.

Kyla’s little black Hackney pony named Flash became the shortest horse ever to complete the Tevis Cup since the annual race’s inception in 1955. In contrast, Kyla’s mom rode an American Saddlebred named Brave, who stands a full 21 inches taller than Flash.

Among those who saw the mother-daughter duo compete at last year’s remarkable race was book author Claire Eckard, who noted that she had been working on a fictional story about a girl and her horse overcoming many obstacles on their journey to making Tevis Cup history.

“And then, all of a sudden, here were my characters in real life!” Eckard said.

“I was fortunate enough after the ride to go into the horse barns and I got to see Flash,” Eckard told St. George News during a recent interview at the Law family’s home in Leeds.

The tiny horse created quite a first impression, Eckard recalled.

“I wondered what his story was,” she said. “I was just looking at how tiny he was and I was thinking how many footsteps – hoofsteps – did it take to cover 100 miles compared to these larger horses?”

“When they collected their awards on stage, I was there watching them,” Eckard recalled, saying she then decided to reach out to the family and ask if she could help tell their story.

“As a writer, I’m always looking for what is the story behind something,” explained Eckard, who lives in Arizona. “So I managed to connect, actually as they were driving back to St. George, and Kyla and I started emailing each other.”

“Initially, we were thinking of just doing a children’s book with illustrations,” Eckard added. “But the more that we talked and the more that I talked with Natalie, I realized how much there was to their story, and I didn’t think we could do it justice in a children’s book. So we started to put together a novel-length story.”

The resulting 192-page paperback book, titled “Race Against Time,” is scheduled for official release on Jan. 9 by Cedar Fort Publishing. It is available for preorder on Amazon.

Eckard said the book covers the period from when Kyla first met Flash until the Tevis Cup race four years later.

Eckard noted that for the first several years of Flash’s life, the pony was thought to be unrideable.

“We don’t know all of Flash’s history; we just know that he was incredibly scared and traumatized by people,” Eckard said. “He also had quite a large scar on his right front, and we don’t know what happened. But we knew that he had been out in pasture for five years, and he was 8 years old at the time, so most of his life he had been alone out in the pasture. He just didn’t know how to relate to people at all.”

“Now, Kyla comes along, and she’s a young girl who has suffered from a lot of bullying in school and always found it harder to connect with people than animals,” Eckard added. “When she met Flash, she was 9, but she was tiny. She even looked younger than that.”

“Shelah Wetter, the trainer that owned Flash at the time, was looking for somebody with the riding skills but who was small enough to work with him,” Eckard added. “But also someone that could connect with him on an emotional level. And she just really felt that Kyla was that person.”

“When she saw Flash for the first time, she understood his fear,” Natalie Law said of her daughter, as quoted by Eckard in a news release about the book. “They were two kindred souls connecting.”

“That was kind of the beginning of some real magic,” Eckard told St. George News. “They really had to work hard to connect in a way that eventually she would be able to ride him, because it took a long time just to get to that point.” 

The process, Eckard noted, involved Kyla spending “many, many hours of just talking with him, telling him all of her secrets, which she loved. And just bonding with him, brushing him.”

“It took a while to even get to the point where she could touch him,” she added. “And then finally, one day, she was able to earn his trust, and she could get on and first see that view through the ears – you know, what she was going to see for many, many miles after that.”

“It’s a really special story, because they both overcame so much on their journey with each other,” Eckard added. “I think that’s the part of the book that really grabs people’s attention.” 

Kyla, who’s now 14 and a freshman at Desert Hills High School, told St. George News that she wasn’t sure that Flash would be able to carry her for 100 miles during last summer’s race.

“I was kind of worried because I was getting pretty big,” she said. “But my mom helped me stay optimistic about it. So for most of the ride, we were pretty optimistic and just enjoying the beauty. Even if we got cut, we were just happy to be there.”

“We were hoping to finish, though, and we did,” Kyla added. “I was really proud of Flash and my mom and Brave.”

Kyla added that she believes her story has an important message.

“People can do anything they want, if they can put their mind to it,” she said. “And if they work hard, they can achieve almost every goal … maybe not like, fly, but like, almost every goal.”

“Everyone can do hard things,” Kyla added.

In her book’s news release, Eckard mentions the parallels between the difficult physical race and the spiritual journey that Kyla experienced.

“Kyla and Flash’s relationship mirrors the journey we must all take in life: one of highs and lows, successes and failures, Eckard wrote in the book. “Theirs just happens to be along a hundred-mile trail in the Sierra Nevada mountains.” 

“Their story exhibits tenacity and pure spirit: the human spirit, the Holy Spirit, and the fire-in-the-soul kind of spirit that helps us climb mountains and cross rivers, literally and figuratively,” Eckard added.

“By the time they crossed the elusive finish line of the 100-mile race, Flash had proved that he could overcome a lifetime of fear and succeed where many other horses had failed, and Kyla had found the deepening of her faith that she had been searching for,” Eckard wrote.

“In Kyla’s own words: ‘I am a child of God, and always will be,’” she added.

A book-signing event has been scheduled for the afternoon of Jan. 13 at the Barnes and Noble bookstore in Red Cliffs Mall in St. George, from 4:30 to 6 p.m. Eckard said that she, along with Kyla and Natalie Law, will be on hand to sign copies of the book and answer questions. 

The following evening, in conjunction with the book release, a related documentary film titled, “Two Enduring Spirits: The Inspiring Story of Kyla Law and Her Pony Flash” will premiere at Sunset Megaplex theaters in St. George in a one-night only showing on the evening of Jan. 14.  Flash is scheduled to make a guest appearance at a meet-and-greet event prior to the showing of the movie, from 4.30 to 5.30 p.m. Click here to watch the preview trailer for the film on YouTube. To reserve tickets or to order books or merchandise, visit the “Race Against Time” page on the Cedar Fort website.

Eckard said she has also written a song inspired by Kyla titled, “A Child of God,” which is featured in the documentary film. Produced by Ricky Valadez, owner of Valadez Studios in St George, the song is scheduled for release on Jan. 14, with a music video scheduled to be shot at Snow Canyon State Park in February.

Photo Gallery

Copyright St. George News, SaintGeorgeUtah.com LLC, 2022, all rights reserved.