One of my favorites is “Ride the Wild Storm” about an asthmatic city boy who spends a summer in Nantucket and becomes stronger and more independent after he befriends an islander and learns to take care of a grey mare, Salty. (holy run-on!) It’s a pretty typical story line, but the setting is neat.
<BLOCKQUOTE class=“ip-ubbcode-quote”><font size="-1">quote:</font><HR>Originally posted by Jennie:
I just went to some of the links and realize there are so many versions of “Black Beauty” out there. Does anyone know this one, which is probably printed 1950’s or earlier, contains many black and white and color illustrations. The color ones include, to the best of my memory: Black Beauty peeking over the stall to look at Merrylegs next to him; Black Beauty and Ginger hitched up to the carriage; Black Beauty being led out of the burning stable with a cloth tied over his eyes. Any help appreciated!<HR></BLOCKQUOTE>
And the cover looked like a stall door w/ Beauty looking out? That’s the one I remember w/ great color illustrations you mentioned. That was a children’s abridged version printed in an oversize format for little fingers. I wore the cover right off that book.
Also The Chestry Oak by <slaps hand to forehead> I give up. A wonderful story of a small eastern european country at the start of WWII. Young Prince Michael is horse crazy and adores his father’s black stallion who is trained to high level dressage. The royal family is betrayed by the King’s minister and as the storm troopers come to place the King under arrest a kindly groom? takes Michael to the barn, puts him on the stallion and off into the night they flee.
Months later we see “Michael Prince” in a hospital waiting word of his adoption by American parents. He has lost his memory and is treated as an ordinary refuge orphan. Off he goes to Kansas where one of the great remount stations is, and at a sale he attends w/ his family Michael is drawn to a wild black stallion. It is his father’s horse and Michael slips into the ring and w/o tack performs a high school dressage ride that brought tears to my eyes. For Michael now remembers all that has been lost including his father, his country, his title. As he begins he says, “And now my friend, we dance one last time for all that was and shall never be again.” God I’m crying now just remembering it…
Kate Senedy (sp?) I believe was the author.
Was done by my great aunt, Eleanor Graham Vance.
http://www.abebooks.com is still coming up with matches for my “wish I still had” books.
Any one recall the title of one about two friends spending the summer on one of the girl’s parents farm. A nasty caretaker couple mismanage the place and the girls spend the summer roaming. The horses were renamed by the girls to “Boojum” and “Snark”.
Remember hitting the library and checking out EVERY horse book, including those by British writers who apparently published during the Trojan wars? Remember showing up for your first lessons and fully expecting to meet a teacher clad like a master of the hounds? Those Brits certainly put ideas in our heads!
Who could forget trying to figure out what the heck “head collar” meant? Or following a recipe for bran mash – only because you didn’t happen to be living on the Scottish moor, you didn’t have bran and at least six other ingredients in the cabinet. Heck, paprika and cinammon – kind of the same color. No apples? Pears will do! Of course the animal wouldn’t touch the damn mash with a six-foot lunge whip.
And what was with the never-ending reference to Pony Club? Pony Club Pony Club Pony Club! Was it something in the water? Something genetic? God almighty. There will always be an England.
Paisley.
Does this ring a bell for anybody? All i can remember was repeatedly checking it out of the adult section of the local library as a very, very small kid (which would explain why i can’t remember the story). It was in a beautiful slipcover, and was about a paint horse named Persimmon (Basically, i checked it out over and over because i liked looking at the artwork, and because i quite enjoyed taking it in and out of the slipcover…).
I’m amazed that no one has mentioned Ebay yet as a great source to find a lot of these old books!!! As an avid childs horse book collector I’ve found many books on there!!!
As for favorites, I don’t even know where to begin!!! I love the Bonnie books by Barbara Van Tuyl ( I have a couple of duplicates if anyone is looking for them!!!) The Golden Stallion series by Rutherford Montgomery is another special favorite for me. When ever I visited my Grandmother in Chicago, I always made a beeline to their shelf at her local library so I could read them again! My local library back in L.A. didn’t have them.
Anyone else remember reading the Timber Trail Riders series??? How about Marjory Reynolds (Keep a Silver Dollar and Dark Horse Barnaby)? I could go on and on…everytime I look at my bookcase crammed with horse books another one pops out as a favorite…sigh…i love the memories they bring back !!!
What about Jane McIlvane McClary’s “Cammie” books? I loved those when I was a kid, especially the first one where she learns to ride Brave Sabrina. I’d love to find those books but have been unsuccessful so far.
Non-fiction, but I also loved (and still read to this day) Jane Dillon’s “School for Young Riders” and “Form over Fences”
Another good one is Florence Hightower’s “Dark Horse of Woodfield.”
And let’s not forget “Billy and Blaze.”
Had a series starting with Silver Birch, continuing with Midnight Moon, Golden Soveriegn (Birchy’s colt) and Copper Khan.
She also wrote Blue Smoke, Dark Sunshine, Red Embers, Smoke Rings, Harlequin Hullabaloo, one about an app and at least one sequel to whichever “smoke” one was about eventing.
This thread wasn’t limited to books of fiction, so I would like to nominate the instructional book that I loved as a child – “Heads Up, Heels Down” – my favorite, hands down. 
As far as works of fiction, I echo Everythingbutwings, I loved “Frog”
Incidentally, Everythingbutwings, noticed you mentioned “Black Horse of Culver” – my uncle (retired US Army colonel) commanded Culver Institute’s Black Horse Troup during the 60’s and instructed all of the riders in it. I remember going to visit them in Indiana in about 1961 and touring the stables.
I was a big fan of any Sam Savitt illustrated book - “Summer Pony” comes to mind. I also wound up with lots of CW Anderson Man O’ War prints.
I don’t think I ever read “Black Horse from Culver” but my husband was in the Black Horse Troop and said he would like to see it (and is looking over my shoulder while I type). Who wrote it and how can I find it?
OMG Robby, i didnt know anyone else but me read Mr Ragman and For Love of a Horse!!! LOL
The Fields of Praise, about an english girl who helps train, and rides, a pony to grand champion at the horse of the year show…
The Year of the Horse, about the canadian girl w/ the strange family who rides with the rich family when the son gives it up…
I have all the Bonnie books!!!
anything by Jean Slaughter Doty…
Dark Horse Barnaby. And the one where the mare is stuck in the valley, heavily pregnant, and the girl has to get her back up the hill.
CW Anderson…Mary O’Hara…Marguerite Henry…
Dark Sunshine…Blue Smoke ( that was the one about cutting horses). boy this brings back memories!!
Jody Jaffe’s books are great, someone posted not long ago that there aren’t any more in the works though. 
Rita Mae Brown has a bunch (written with her cat, Sneaky Pie) that are set in the town of Crozet, VA and are fun.
I can’t believe I read through this whole post and nobody has said “Black Beauty” by Anna Sewell. It was the first horse book I read, in 2nd grade. The librarian didn’t want to let me take it out because she thought it was too advanced for me. I remember reading snatches in the few minutes between getting dressed and leaving the house before school I was so enthralled and couldn’t put it down. I now prowl used book stores looking for the same copy with the great color illustrations this particular version had, but haven’t found it yet. Instead, I’ve now started collecting various versions. I’ll check some of the links here - thanks. This is the book that still brings tears to my eyes everytime I read it.
Also, I have “Horsemanship for Beginners” by Jean Slaughter - must be before she got married. I noticed a few years ago in the Acknowledgement that the kids’ pictures in the book included George Morris, Victor Hugo-Vidal, Ronnie Mutch, among others. I took the book with me to a George Morris clinic and got him to sign a pic of him as a kid (pg. 57) cantering through a field - really put a smile on his face, he thought that was great, hadn’t seen the book in ages.
I loved “5 o’clock Charlie”, “The Exterminator”, “A Filly for Joan”, and “Little Black A Pony”.
Paisley, you remind me of the Jill series. I love those old British pony books!
My modern (70’s??) cheap copies of Jill’s Gymkhana and Jill has Two Ponies has a fat little girl on the cover, but darling original artwork inside!
Does anyone remember a book - I think it was called “The Crumb” - or it was definitely the name of the pony in the book. It’s about this girl who has a buckskin pony the she shows - it’s a mystery book where someone is trying to kidnap show ponies.
My other absolutely favorite was CW Anderson’s “Afraid To Ride”.
And of course “A Very Young Rider”
I got a copy of Steinbecks “The Red Pony” illustrated by Wesley Dennis off of ebay. Found the fantastic set of prints “Portfolio of Horses” that were done for Marguerite Henry’s “Album of Horses” there as well. 
“Can I Get There By Candlelight?” by Jean Slaughter Doty. Amazing book, if you haven’t read it yet you are missing out on a GREAT story!
Does anyone remember reading a book called “Gift Horse”? I don’t remember the author, unfortunately. I read it while I was at riding camp in 7th grade… it was on a shelf in a tackroom and I thieved it for the the week.
I really loved the Black Stallion books, although I never managed to finish all of them, which I regret. Would it be too dorky for me to pick them up again now, at the ripe old age of 22?
Anything by Jean Slaughter-Doty and I loved “The Bonnie Books”. Did anyone else read those?
