ABANDONED. Old Children's Book - Horses with Mythological Names

[Donna]

I read this book in the 1950s and can remember almost nothing about it, but what I do remember is sufficiently unique that if you read it you will probably recognize it. It is one of the typical Y/A horse plots where a girl comes to spend the summer with a family with horses. All the horses have names involved with Roman gods or heroes. There was Ajax and Agrippa and particularly Cassandra. I remember someone saying something like, "Poor Cassandra, just like her namesake we never believed her either!"

It was not "Hobby Horse Hill".

[bookel]

Have you tried this message board?
http://horsebooks.proboards.com/board...
they specialise in horse books.

[Donna]

Thanks for this suggestion. I have just posted my query there and hopefully someone might remember it.

[Ann aka Iftcan]

Donna--if you do get it ID"ed please come back and let us know the name. I have a shelf of "horse" books (along with a bunch of other specialty shelves) that I'd love to add this to.

[Donna]

Yes, if I can track it down I'll certainly let you know what it is. I'm not having much luck yet though.

I have been thinking of a book where one of the horses takes a seemingly inexplicable dislike to a man who everyone else likes, e.g. tries to kick him, shies away from him. It turns out later that he was a horse thief. However, I have no idea whether this is the same book. I read so many pony books as a child that I think I sometimes run a couple of stories together in my mind.

[Tab]

Oops, sorry. just realized you said NOT Hobby Horse Hill

[Donna]

Bump

[Donna]

Bump

[Kris]

Donna, what was the tone of the first book you described - humorous, angst/coming-of-age, etc.? Was the girl dealing with certain problems?

Do you remember anything about the cover?

[Donna]

I do recall the book seemed rather bleak/dark in tone to me at the time with quite a few bad people in it. I think the girls were older, teenagers rather than children. I think the danger was to Cassandra and she became upset for no apparent reason and later one of the children said "Poor Cassandra, just like her namesake we never believed her either."

I'm afraid I have no idea about the cover. I don't remember too much about the people either - my focus was entirely on horses back then.

[Tab]

Do you remember the time period/location the story takes place?

[Donna]

I read this book in the 1950s and I thought it was probably set around then or maybe a little earlier. I'm not even sure if it was set in USA or UK. I am leaning towards UK though, as I read heaps of horse-related books around then and most of them were set in UK.

[Lobstergirl, au gratin]

Donna, are you still looking for this or did you find it?

[Lobstergirl, au gratin]

Lobstergirl wrote: "Donna, are you still looking for this or did you find it?"

No response in 2 years. Moving to Abandoned.