[QUOTE=
Misty of Chincoteague. Every Black Stallion I could get my hands on, My Friend Flicka, Thunderhead, and that whole series by Mary O’Hara.
And Lassie , too, of course.[/QUOTE]
This is a great topic.
I’m surprised it took so long (page 4) for someone to get to Will James! I ate up anything I could find of his, and I always figured that Smokey was a western horse Black Beauty story.
There’s also, of course all the Black Stallion books, and the ones with Flame. I even wrote a letter to Walter Farley - I wanted him to write a book about a colt by Flame out of Black Minx. I made the mistake of telling the grade school librarian, and they made me read his reply to the class. Then, everyone else started writing letters to authors they liked; it started a fad, of sorts.
There was one book (I don’t remember the title) about a boy who attended the Spanish Riding school, and there was a part in that one, about where during his training, someone made him ride with a broom handle stuck down the back of his coat so he would learn to sit straight. From then on, I rode with a back so straight (pretending I had a broom handle back there!), that sometimes folks would ask me about it. “You’re sitting really straight, don’t you think you might want to relax a bit?” Me: “No, this is how they do it in the spanish Riding school!”
Others were Indian Paint, Black Beauty, Any horse book by Marguerite Henry (King of the Wind, Misty, Brighty, etc.), any mythology involving horses (Pegasus, mainly), various books describing horse breeds, so many I can’t think of them all.
And the one that got me started: “Susan and Little Black Boy”. A little girl outgrows her beloved pony, Little Black Boy, and starts riding Big Red the horse. Then Trouble, and a happy ending. I still have my copy. Love it.
https://www.amazon.com/Susan-Little-Black-Zetta-Tate/dp/B000GJQ10I
