Kenoyer, Natlee

About the author

When Natlee Kenoyer was born in 1907 in Modesto, San Francisco was still recovering from the after effects of the earthquake of 1906. She loved horses, and first rode on a burro in Golden Gate Park at the age of seven. She had her own pony at the age of eight, but no riding lessons, and taught herself when a neighbour gave her a book on riding, fed up with seeing her fall off the pony time after time.

She has written ten books on horses, mostly non fiction. Her first horse story was written with George Rutherford Montgomery, author of the Golden Stallion series. The story of Claudia and Dennis, and their battle to afford their horse, it was followed by Claudia’s Five-Dollar Horse, which Kenoyer wrote on her own. It continued the theme of trying to combine a love of horses with a lack of money. It’s interesting to note that one of her later non-fiction books was called Make Money with Horses.

Finding the books
All are easy to find. None were published in the UK.

Links and sources
Natlee Kenoyer at the Sonoma Horse Council


Bibliography (horse books only)


A Horse for Claudia and Dennis

By Natlee Kenoyer and George Rutherford Montgomery
Duell, Sloan & Pearce, New York, 1958, illus Carol Wetmore

Claudia and Dennis saved their money for a year in order to be able to buy Blaze. That wasn’t the end of it though; once they had the horse, they had to learn how to take care of him, how to ride him, and work out how to earn enough money to keep him.

Claudia’s Five-Dollar Horse

Duell, Sloan & Pearce, New York, 1960, 194 pp, illus Everett Kinstler

Kirkus review

The ranch where Claudia and her family live must be sold, but even though they’re on the brink of moving out, Claudia buys a neglected mare for five dollars. She thinks they will be able to keep the ranch if they can start boarding horses, doing trail rides for tourists.

Three Children and a Fire Horse

Bethany Press, St Louis, 1969, 144 pp, illus Darrell D Wiskur

I’m assuming from the title this is fiction, but don’t know anymore about it than the bare bibliographical detail. If anyone can help, please contact me.