About the author
Louise Lee Floethe (1913–88) wrote and illustrated numerous children’s books, some with her husband, Richard Floethe. Louise Lee was born in New York; her husband in Germany. She was educated at Columbia University, where she studied drama. She had already published several children’s books by the time she married Richard, who had studied art, and was art director of the New York City poster division of the Works Progress Administration art projects. After the pair married they began to collaborate. Their first book together was If I Were Captain (1956). The one horse title Louise wrote was illustrated by Richard.
Finding the book
Reasonably easy to find.
Links and sources
Terri Wear: Horse Stories – An Annotated Bibliography
Thanks to Lisa Catz for the photograph and summary
Louise and Richard Floethe’s papers, Children’s Literature Research Collection, Free Library of Philadelphia
Bibliography (horse books only)
The Winning Colt
Sterling Publishing Com, 1956, 91 pp, illus Richard Floethe
Upjohn Brooks III has big shoes to fill. His sire and grandsire both won the Hambletonian. He shows great promise as a two-year-old, but then he is injured. The injury heals, but not well enough to allow him to race, and so the colt is sold. His new master whips the horse when he doesn’t win. A girl named Katherine rescues the colt, and gets her father to buy him. Brooks is schooled first as a saddle horse, and then as a jumper. People doubt that an ex-trotter will do well at horse shows, but Katherine and Brooks set out to prove otherwise.