Hello Mary, and all, "All the Pretty Little Horses" was, in our family, just a happy,"trot-a-horsey' kind of thing; I suppose the slave-mother version came first, then got adapted in different localities, and the "pretty little horses" image took over from the sadder one. We sang it to our babies with a bright, bouncy tune:

Go to sleepy, little baby
Fore the boogerman gets you!
When you wake, you'll have a piece o'cake
And all the pretty little horses:
Blacks n'bays 'n dapples 'n grays, so
Go to sleepy, little baby
Fore the boogerman gets you!

Go to sleepy, little baby
Fore the boogerman gets you!
When you wake you'll have a piece 'o cake
An' a coach and sixa little ponies,
Two blacks an'a bay, two dapples an' a gray, so
Go to sleepy, little baby
Fore the boogerman gets you!

It wasn't until after I came to New York, and heard Frank Warner sing it, that I got to know the older (probably) version, with the poor little lambie.

If you've read SINGING FAMILY OF THE CUMBERLANDS,my book about the family, you'll know that even our happy version became a sad reminder for us of the death of my baby nephew, Little Winkie. A great family tragedy.