Smoky was remade again, in 1966, with Fess Parker in the McMurrray role. This time the Thoroughbred gelding Diamond Jet, a former racehorse owned by the Fat Jones Stable, portrayed Smoky. Trained by Les Hilton, Diamond Jet delivered a solid performance in the otherwise mediocre remake.
Unfortunately, Diamond Jet entered the picture business at a time when there were few choice roles for horses. He only appeared in a handful of films. Before he was gelded, however, he sired several foals. One of his colts, Hud, was featured as Paul Newman’s mount in Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid (1969).
Country Gentleman costars with Fred McMurray in Smoky (1946).
Tonka
Tonka (1958), a Walt Disney production costarring Sal Mineo and a Quarter Horse gelding named Canton, is loosely based on the true story of the lone army survivor of the Battle of Little Big Horn, a cavalry mount named Comanche. Canton was eight years old and had already enjoyed a career as a top-class reining horse when Disney bought him for Tonka.
Tonka opens on Canton galloping across the plains, pursued by Sioux braves. The stallion is captured by White Bull (Sal Mineo), who names him Tonka. White Bull develops a strong bond with Tonka and later frees him to save him from the abusive Yellow Bull. The horse is then captured by dealers and sold to the U.S. Cavalry. Renamed Comanche, he becomes the mount of Captain Miles Keogh (Philip Carey), who is killed at Little Big Horn. After the fateful battle, White Bull joins the cavalry to take care of Comanche in his retirement.
In reality, Comanche had been a wild horse. The 15-hand buckskin did carry Keogh into battle at Little Big Horn and survive. However, the character of White Bull is pure Disney fiction: Comanche was subsequently cared for by Cavalry blacksmith Gustave Korn. Comanche died in 1891 at twenty-nine; his mounted remains can still be seen at the Natural History Museum at the University of Kansas in Lawrence.
As Tonka, Canton received a PATSY Award in 1959 for his starring role. There is some question, however, as to whether Canton really deserved this award. Although he performed a number of difficult stunts and extensive work at liberty, he did have doubles, including the Jerry Brown Falling Horse.
Canton also reportedly had to be replaced after he suddenly quit and literally walked off the set in the middle of filming in Oregon. The frantic filmmakers sent for the reliable star of the television series Flicka. The makeup department duplicated Tonka’s white markings, and the film was finished with Flicka in the starring role. According to the official press release, Canton was retired to Disney’s ranch near Palm Springs, California.
Tonka’s 1958 colorful poster promises lots of horse action and a buff Sal Mineo playing a Native American. The fictionalized story of the horse who survived Little Big Horn was based on the real story of Comanche, below at Fort Lincoln circa 1880.
The Big Country
Slim Pickens loaned out his Appaloosa, Dear John, for William Wyler’s classic Western The Big Country (1958). Gregory Peck portrays an Easterner who comes west to marry a powerful rancher’s daughter and finds his masculinity challenged by the local men. One of his tests is to ride a notorious horse named Old Thunder. Peck tackles the bronc in secret with only a friendly Mexican wrangler (Alfonso Bedoya) as witness. In the saddling scene, Dear John gets laughs by snatching off the saddle blanket every time it’s placed on his back. The men manage to get the horse saddled, and Peck gingerly mounts Old Thunder. Dear John’s double, Little John, was brought in for the sequence in which Peck sits astride the apparently stubborn Old Thunder, who refuses to budge, despite much kicking by the actor. A quick cut shows Old Thunder suddenly coming to life, bucking violently. It is Dear John doing his best, without a bucking strap, with Slim Pickens doubling Peck in this exquisitely staged and edited sequence.
Incidentally, another horse of color commands attention in The Big Country. Peck’s main movie challenger, Charlton Heston, rides a black-and-white pinto named Domino. Like the similarly marked Dice, the photogenic Domino was owned and trained by Ralph McCutcheon.
Giant
Director George Stevens won an Oscar for his direction of the epic Western Giant (1956). Meanwhile, Ralph McCutcheon’s versatile horse Highland Dale (Beaut) won a PATSY Award for his contribution to the film.
Playing a prized stallion, Warwinds, Beaut was ridden sidesaddle by Elizabeth Taylor in an early foxhunting scene. Rock Hudson stars as a Texas oil baron who comes east to buy Warwinds and returns home with both the horse and a new bride, Taylor. In his final scene, the fatally injured Warwinds limps riderless to the hitching post in front of the ranch house. He stands pitifully on three legs, his flanks bloody from spurring, his bridle hanging broken from his beautiful head. He whinnies softly for his mistress and has a poignant farewell scene with Taylor. Warwinds seems to know he must be destroyed because of his broken leg. It’s an amazing performance.
Texas oil baron Rock Hudson sizes up Warwinds (Highland Dale), the black stallion he has come east to purchase, but his lovely rider, Elizabeth Taylor, captures his heart in 1956’s Giant.
With his rarely photographed owner/trainer Ralph McCutcheon looking on, Highland Dale checks out his PATSY Award for 1956’s Giant.
The Man Who Shot Liberty Valance
Star James Stewart never throws his leg over a horse in this 1962 John Ford drama that costars John Wayne, but champion trick rider and roper Montie Montana makes a spectacular cameo appearance on his pinto Poncho Rex. Montie rides Poncho into a convention hall filled with people, rears the horse, and rides up several steps to the stage, where he lassos a politician. Ad libbing, Poncho took a drink from a pitcher of water on the rostrum. John Ford loved it, and the bit stayed in the film.
How The West Was Won
How The West Was Won (1963) is one of the most lavish showcases for horses ever filmed. Directed in three segments by Henry Hathaway, John Ford, and George Marshall, the film follows a pioneer family from 1830 to the end of the century. It also provides a history lesson on how horses helped shape America: hauling pioneers westward, plowing fields, serving in the Civil War and the Pony Express, and providing transportation for everybody—cowboys, Indians, outlaws, mountain men, railroad men, and ladies in horse-drawn carriages.
With an all-star cast, How the West Was Won was filmed in Cinerama, a three-camera panoramic process that filled special curved screens with action. This format called for big stunts, including a scene in which veteran stuntman Loren Janes is nearly trampled by six horses who were supposed to leap over him. Although trained to jump at a predetermined spot, the horses failed to recognize the stuntman as an obstacle during the shoot. They ran right over Janes, knocking him unconscious. Janes recovered, and the stunning scene made the final cut.
Except for the falling horses owned by individual stuntmen, the Fat Jones Stable provided all the horses and horse-drawn vehicles for How The West Was Won.
The Classic “B” Westerns
Throughout the 1930s, ’40s and ’50s, movie studios churned out thousands of cheaply made “B” Western features and serials depicting cowboy life in the 1800s—or at least Hollywood’s version of it.
Many of the “B” Westerns continued the tradition of the cowboy-horse partnership with duos such as Tim Holt and Duke, a brown American Saddlebred trained by Swede Lindell. Originally named Strike, Duke appeared with Holt in his pre-World War II films.
“Wild” Bill Elliot appeared in the 1940s Red Ryder series aboard a Ralph McCutcheon-trained Morgan named Andy Pershing, renamed Thunder for the movies. In 1946, Elliot sold Thunder to Alan “Rocky” Lane, who also appeared in Red Ryder. He changed Thunder’s name to Black Jack and rode him in a number of Republic Westerns. Alan Lane later worked with another famous horse, lending his voice to television’s “Mister Ed.”
Lash LaRue was known as “King of the Bullwhip” in a series of films in the late 1940s and 1950s. He foiled his enemies with his bullwhip and rode Rush, a magnificent black stallion, in a silver-trimmed saddle.
Duncan Renaldo and Leo Carrillo portra
yed the Cisco Kid and his sidekick, Poncho, in five feature films. Renaldo rode Ralph McCutcheon’s Diablo, an elaborately marked pinto who lived into his forties. Carrillo’s mount was a palomino named Loco. They all made the transition to television in 1950 with The Cisco Kid series, which ran until 1956.
One of the most popular serials was Republic Pictures’ The Three Mesquiteers. The series of fifty-one films, produced from 1935 through 1943, featured rotating cowboy stars in the title roles, with nine different teams total. The Three Mesquiteers included Ray Corrigan, Rufe Davis, Jimmy Dodd, Raymon Hatton, Bob Livingston, Bob Steele, Max Terhune, Tom Tyler, Duncan Renaldo, and John Wayne. The cowboy actors rode various mounts from the Hudkins Brothers Stables. They were doubled for many rough stunts, including Running W falls, at least until 1940 when those falls were banned.
Like many “B” Westerns, The Three Mesquiteers often featured a horse as a plot device. For example, in Wild Horse Rodeo (1937), a wild stallion is captured and trained to be a rodeo star. The horse is stolen by rustlers, reclaimed by the Mesquiteers, and freed to live wild once more. The film starred Bob Livingston, Ray Corrigan and Max Terhune, with billing going to Cyclone the Horse.
Beginning in 1935, William Boyd found success as Hopalong Cassidy in a series of films. Boyd’s horse was the magnificent white stallion Topper, who appeared with him in sixty-six features and fifty-two half-hour television episodes. Possibly a Tennessee Walking Horse, Topper was named in 1937 by Boyd’s bride, Grace Bradley Boyd, after the eccentric Cosmo Topper character in a book series authored by Thorne Smith. Boyd and Topper were heroes to millions of children in the 1950s. In 1950, they appeared on the covers of Time and Look magazines. The duo lent their images to $70-million worth of licensed products aimed at their youthful fan base. Boyd and Topper gave back to their fans, too, making numerous national tours and visiting orphanages and hospitals. On his nineteenth birthday in 1953, Topper enjoyed a carrot cake with seventy-five crippled children at a New York hospital.
By his own admission, Boyd was not a great rider, and Topper’s primary job was to look good. The star and his stallion were doubled for stunts and tricks. Topper’s stark white coat, black-rimmed ears, and blue eyes must have been hard to duplicate, but filmmakers had no choice: Topper was not a highly trained horse.
Topper died in 1961 at age twenty-six, after his annual appearance in the Rose Bowl Parade. He was buried at the Los Angeles Pet Memorial Park in Calabasas, California, now known as S.O.P.H.I.E. (Save Our Pets’ History in Eternity). Topper’s grave can still be visited there. His headstone reads: “Topper—Hopalong Cassidy’s Horse.” William Boyd could never trust another horse the way he did Topper and retired the character of Hopalong Cassidy not long after the death of his beloved mount.
William Boyd as Hopalong Cassidy with topper.
Ray “Crash” Corrigan, Max Terhune, and Yakima Canutt (doubling John Wayne, center) on three hardworking steeds in Republic’s 1938 episode of The Three Mesquiteers, Santa Fe Stampede.
Television Westerns
The Roy Rogers Show, The Gene Autry Show, Adventures of Champion, Hopalong Cassidy, The Cisco Kid, and The Lone Ranger were among the first television series to feature horses in prominent roles. All of these, except The Lone Ranger, were spin-offs from movies.
Gene Autry and (TV) Champion lend their star power to Autry’s Flying a Pictures’ television series The Range Rider (1950–1953) with Jock Mahoney and Dick Jones.
The black-and-white Diablo, ridden by Duncan Renaldo, stood out on the big and small screen, while his palomino cohort, Loco, presented a nice contrast as Leo Carrillo’s mount in The Cisco Kid.
The Lone Ranger began as a radio serial in 1933. The famous fictional partnership between the masked hero and his “fiery horse with the speed of light” began when The Lone Ranger saved Silver, a wild white stallion, from a buffalo attack. Clayton Moore portrayed The Lone Ranger in the television series that debuted in 1949. His trademark cry “Hi-Yo-Silver!” preceded wild gallops in defense of good. Program owner George Trendle purchased the original Silver, formerly White Cloud, from the Hooker Ranch in the San Fernando Valley. Moore claimed the 17-hand horse was a Morab (Arabian/Morgan), but wranglers who worked with him have said he was a Tennessee Walker. Given his size, that seems more likely. The twelve-year-old even-tempered Silver was a natural picture horse.
A second Silver was purchased as a four-year-old by Trendle in 1949. Although Moore claimed this horse was also a Morab, he was reportedly actually half-Arabian and half-Saddlebred. Silver Number Two was extremely high-strung and required the magic touch of Glenn Randall, who trained the horse until 1952, when he was finally pronounced ready. Used to double the original Silver in action scenes, he was stamped with Randall’s famous near vertical rear. Silver doubles were ridden by stuntmen in dangerous scenes. Of course, as far as the kids were concerned, there was only one Silver. Like Trigger and Champion, the immensely popular Silver had his own Dell comic-book series. The Lone Ranger’s Indian sidekick, Tonto, rode a brown-and-white pinto named Scout.
In January 1954, Gene Autry’s Flying A Pictures brought the Annie Oakley series to television. Gail Davis starred as the rough-riding, straight-shooting cowgirl of historical fame. Although Davis was no stranger to the saddle, accomplished stuntwoman and champion trick rider Donna Hall doubled Davis in the show and the series’s spectacular opening trick-riding sequence.
In January 1954, Gene Autry’s Flying A Pictures brought the Annie Oakley series to television. Gail Davis starred as the rough-riding, straight-shooting cowgirl of historical fame.
In 1955, Gunsmoke ushered in a new type of television Western. Kids could still enjoy the action of the new crop of Westerns, but the subject matter was adult. Horses were no longer treated like best pals and sidekicks—just necessary. Shows such as The Big Valley, Cheyenne, Have Gun Will Travel, Maverick, Rawhide, The Rifleman, The Virginian, Wagon Train, and Wanted: Dead or Alive continued the Western tradition on TV, with horses used mainly as transportation.
Bonanza, which debuted on NBC on September 12, 1959, would become the second longest running prime-time television series in history. The first hour-long TV Western shot in color, Bonanza centered on ranch owner Ben Cartwright (Lorne Greene) and his three sons. Their horses were chosen in large part for how their coats looked in color. Rented from the Fat Jones Stable, the cast mounts were simply good solid riding horses.
Lorne Greene rode a 15.1-hand buckskin Quarter Horse named—what else?—Buck. Buck’s registered name was Dunny Waggoner. By the time the series ended, Greene had grown so attached to Dunny that he bought the horse for himself.
Dan Blocker, who played Hoss, rode Chub, a dark brown Thoroughbred/Quarter Horse with a white blaze. Standing about 15.3-hands high, Chub was stocky enough to carry Blocker’s heavy frame. As Adam, Pernell Roberts rode a bright sorrel part-Thoroughbred gelding named Candy for three seasons, then a similar-looking horse named Sport. Little Joe, played by Michael Landon, rode more than ten different pintos over the program’s fourteen years, all named Cochise. Sadly, in 1964, Cochise was mutilated by vandals who broke into the Jones barn where the Bonanza horses were stabled. Although several horses were injured, only Cochise had to be euthanized. Landon offered a generous reward for information, but the vicious crime was never solved.
After Cochise’s passing, Landon’s other pintos were used for less than three seasons each. These horses were chosen according to the action demanded by the show. When Bonanza went off the air in 1973, the Western pretty much faded from the small screen.
The cast of Bonanza on location in Lake Tahoe in 1968: (from left) Dan Blocker, Lorne Greene, David Canary (in back), Michael Landon, and guest actor Charles Brileso.
6. The Modern Western
“Planes, automobiles, trains, they are great, but when it comes to getting the audience’s heart going, they can’t touch a horse.”
—John Wayne
Boots gives Clark Gable’s double Henry Wills a l
ift in John Huston’s unflinching 1961 Western drama The Misfits.
As America entered the political and social minefield of the 1960s, the entertainment industry mirrored the public’s mood with harder-edged films. The squeaky-clean cowboy and his clever trick horse went the way of the dinosaur, and filmmaking technology advanced to embrace popular taste for pyrotechnics. Car chases replaced horse chases as the currency of action movies, while spaceships and James Bond gizmos upped the entertainment ante. The Western had to adapt or be left in the dust. Modern elements were introduced to make the genre more relevant, but good old-fashioned oaters still surfaced, usually driven by powerful directors and stars lured by romantic tales of the West and the sheer fun of playing cowboys on horseback.
Two stylized black-and-white films examined the disappearance of the good old days with an unflinching eye. In 1961, director John Huston dispelled the myth of the West with the harsh romantic drama The Misfits. The violent capturing of wild horses for slaughter, utilizing trucks in a stark landscape, represents a shocking transgression of the carnal over the spiritual. Man’s brutish domination of nature is exemplified by hard-bitten cowboy Clark Gable’s battle with the doomed horses. Like Marilyn Monroe’s character, who is forced to witness the heartbreaking scene, audiences can only watch in horror.
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