Lena Rivers

This movie is about Charlotte Henry. Her mother is dead and she does not know who her father is. Although her grandmother, Beryl Mercer, insists her parents were married, there is considerable doubt. As a result, when she and granny go to live with Lena's uncle in Louisville, there is considerable disdain for her, made worse by the estate and money being provided by her uncle's wife. Her only friends are from the next estate over, John St. Polis who takes a shine to her and gives her a horse, and his ward, Morgan Galloway, who is being pursued by Lena's cousin, Joyce Compton. That only serves to make Miss Henry's situation worse.

It's based on a novel by Mary Jane Holmes. She's an author I had never heard of before, even though Wikipedia insists she was second in popularity in the era only to Harriet Beecher Stowe. The novel was published in 1856, which means that this modern-dress movie version (for the 1930s) undoubtedly differed in many details of racial relations, although not in the matter of Louisville, Kentucky being a horse-mad city.

There were four silent movie versions of the movie. Two were released in 1914. The one starring Beulah Poynter survives at UCLA.