''Conquering Horse'' is

Frederick Manfred Frederick Feikema Manfred (January 6, 1912 – September 7, 1994) was an American writer of Western (genre), Westerns, very much connected to his native region: the American Midwestern United States, Midwest, and the prairies of the West. He name ...

's first novel in a five-volume series he called '' The Buckskin Man Tales''. It tells a mythic story about Indian life on the Great Plains before the arrival of white people to the region. Film director/writer

Michael Cimino Michael Antonio Cimino ( , ; February 3, 1939 – July 2, 2016) was an American filmmaker. He achieved fame as the director of ''The Deer Hunter'' (1978), which won five Academy Awards, including Academy Award for Best Picture, Best Picture and ...

and producer Michael Gruskoff attempted to adapt Manfred's novel to film,IndieWire: "Interview: Producer Michael Gruskoff on the Foreign Language Academy Award and International Hollywood" By Carlos Aguilar
June 2, 2014 but the project, which was in development at Universal in 1970, was tabled in 1971 because of budget issues. At one point in 1979, he reached a deal with United Artists to make the film, under the condition ''Heaven's Gate'' was a hit. The movie bombed, so this never came to fruition either.

References

*"Frederick Manfred." ''Dictionary of Literary Biography'' 212:185-197. 1999.
The Frederick Manfred Information Page
Books about Native Americans American historical novels Western (genre) novels 1959 American novels {{1950s-western-novel-stub