Velvet Brown is a little girl with a big dream. Day and night she talks of horses; the sleek beautiful animals who have the courage and stamina to win in England's famous Grand National. Someday she too will enter this most grueling and difficult of races. Velvet's family has little patience with her dreams of glory; except for her mother, who swam the English Channel when she was younger, and knows that one must stretch one's abilities to capture the wildest hopes; and Mi Taylor, whose love of horses matches Velvet's own. Mi recognizes in Velvet the same spirit which had given her mother the will to succeed.
There is a lottery about to be held, the prize being "The Piebald," and undisciplined and seemingly useless horse. Mi buys Velvet a ticket and she wins! After that the story is one of making a dream come true, as they train the horse and enter it in the Grand National. And they almost win, but what really matters is what they learn, about life, and people, and the things that really matter when momentary acclaim has run its course.
