Hollywood Hoofbeats

by Petrine Day Mitchum

  Actress Dakota Fanning was just ten years old when she starred as Cale Crane in Dreamer, but despite solid performances from the entire cast, it is her movie all the way. Her luminous presence and scenes with Sonador enliven a rather far-fetched plot.

  Fanning had no previous experience with horses but enjoyed working with them immensely. “I had never really been around horses,” she admitted. “I didn’t know anything!” She learned to ride on Pablo, a little black Quarter Horse that belongs to head wrangler Rusty Hendrickson. Although she took a couple of falls while learning, she was not injured and gamely got right back on Pablo. She ended up falling in love with horses. “I think they’re so beautiful,” she said. “I love them all!” Fanning’s newfound affinity for horses shows as she looks completely at ease with her equine costars, especially two look-alike Thoroughbreds, Go John and Harbor Mist, with whom she has the most scenes.

  According to Hendrickson, Harbor Mist is a Kentucky-bred Thoroughbred who was originally bought at the famous Keeneland Sale, where many potential top racehorses are traded, for $65,000. Rusty found him through an Internet search that led him to the River Downs racetrack in Cincinnati, Ohio. Although Harbor Mist did win some races, his price for the production was considerably less. He’s now trainer Rex Peterson’s top trick horse and the veteran of several movies, including Secretariat.

  In Dreamer, Harbor Mist is the main horse who portrays Sonador when she is suspended from the Crane’s barn ceiling in an elaborate leather sling while her broken leg heals. According to Peterson, “He had the most character” for the scene, in addition to being calm enough to handle being trussed up and hoisted in the air. The sling, modeled on one that Peterson used to rehabilitate one of his own horses, was only used for short periods of time during filming.

  Peterson also taught Harbor Mist to pick up Cale Crane’s backpack and follow her around. One thing Harbor Mist would not do, however, was eat sweets. Sonador is supposed to have a sweet tooth and Cale feeds her popsicles, licorice, and chocolate cake. We never really see a horse eat a popsicle as Cale slips them to the mare through a slat in her stall and extracts the empty stick.

  Trained by Rex Peterson to carry a backpack, Harbor Mist faithfully follows Dakota Fanning in this Dreamer poster image with Kurt Russell.

  Go John loved licorice but none of the Thoroughbreds on the production would eat chocolate cake in a scene that depicts Cale feeding Sonador a slice. Benny, a Quarter Horse with a taste for chocolate, was recruited for that scene. According to Hendrickson, Benny ate an entire cake during multiple takes.

  Benny also portrays Sonador in an exciting sequence when Cale, upset with her father, tries to run away on the mare once her leg has healed. Fanning rode the big, trusty gelding out of the barn but was doubled by a stuntwoman in the hard galloping scenes when Sonador takes off. The sequence is pivotal to the plot as Sonador’s veterinarian has determined she is barren and therefore worthless as a broodmare, but her amazing display of speed shows that she is ready to race again.

  She comes in third in her first comeback race and is claimed by a new owner for $15,000. Cale is bereft and her grandfather Pop (Kris Kristofferson) stakes his savings to buy Sonador back. Cale is given the controlling ownership of the mare and after a series of plot twists, Sonador is accepted to run in the prestigious Breeder’s Cup. Prince Sadir (Oded Fehr), Prince Tariq’s rivalrous brother, puts up the $120,000 entrance fee, and with her faithful exercise rider Manolin (Freddy Rodriquez) aboard, Sonador becomes the first filly to ever win the Breeders’ Cup.

  At the beginning of the Breeders’ Cup sequence, Sonador is possibly injured during an encounter in the paddock with a rival horse. She flatly refuses to return to the stable to be examined. She rears and paws, leans back and pulls against the lead rope, and refuses to budge. It took three horses to create the sequence, with Harbor Mist performing his awesome rear while trainer Peterson cued him offscreen. Of course, Sonador gets her way and runs the race.

  The racing action in Dreamer is expertly choreographed by Rusty Hendrickson and his crew. For Sonador’s initial fall, the spectacular somersault was accomplished using a mechanical horse built by Bruce Larsen. The animatonic horse was modeled on Benny, the cake-loving Quarter Horse. Benny also appears in the sequence as the injured Sonador, lying down on the track and in the barn. The live horses in the stunt sequence were cantered past the mechanical horse repeatedly until they got used to its presence. A mechanical horse was also used for riding close-ups of actor Freddy Rodriguez, who is actually allergic to horses, during the Breeders’ Cup sequence, and also for detailed close-ups when the jockey he portrays, Manolin, loses a stirrup.

  Hendrickson chose a beautiful sprinter named Sacrifice to portray Sonador in all her big racing scenes, and it is this horse that receives sole mention in the final cast credits. Sacrifice was given to director Gatins at the end of production.

  Dakota Fanning also received a horse, a present from her screen father, Kurt Russell. She named the palomino Quarter Horse Goldie, after Mr. Russell’s off-screen partner, Goldie Hawn.

  Sonador (Harbor Mist) and Cale Crane (Dakota Fanning) forge a strong bond in Dreamer.

  Cinematographer Fred Murphy focuses on capturing Dakota Fanning’s acting in this scene from Dreamer. the mechanical horse not only makes close-ups possible, it also frees Fanning to concentrate on acting and not worry about hanging on to a real galloping horse.

  Secretariat

  When the big 16.2-hand chestnut stallion named Secretariat won the mile-and-a-half Belmont Stakes on June 9, 1973 by an astonishing 31 lengths not only did he become the ninth horse to ever win Thoroughbred racing’s Triple Crown, he set an unprecedented speed record that still stands today. Since 1919, only eleven horses have won the Triple Crown. The story of the legendary horse known as “Big Red” and his owner Penny Chenery’s belief in his greatness are the focus of Disney’s 2010 film Secretariat.

  A Colorado housewife and mother of four, Chenery—whose married surname is Tweedy—is summoned home to her family’s Meadow Stables horse farm in Virginia after the death of her mother. Once a brilliant horseman, her father Christopher is in no shape to continue running his racing business. Chenery’s Harvard law professor brother wants to sell the farm, but Chenery refuses. Instead, she is determined to resurrect the business, taking on the male-dominated old boy’s club of the horse-racing elite in the process.

  Two of the farm’s best mares are in foal to Bold Ruler, the champion sire owned by billionaire Ogden Phipps. Keeping the gentlemen’s agreement of letting a coin toss decide which colt will go to Phipps, Chenery loses the toss to the billionaire, who then picks the foal of the younger mare bred for speed. Chenery is pleased to lose, as she has studied the pedigrees and believes the older mare, Somethingroyal, has the genetic advantage. When the chestnut colt is born, he stands almost instantly, astonishing observers who have never seen a newborn horse stand so quickly. Eventually named Secretariat by Chenery’s faithful secretary, Miss Ham, the colt fulfills his early promise by becoming one of the greatest racehorses to ever put hoof to turf. The road to his Belmont victory is hardly smooth, however, and Chenery is pressured to sell Secretariat as a two-year-old to pay estate taxes. Instead she convinces Phipps to buy the first breeding share of the unproven stallion for $190,000, ultimately syndicating his breeding rights for an unprecedented $6.08 million.

  The film really belongs to Diane Lane who portrays Penny Chenery, and it is more a story of a woman’s conviction than it is a horse story. Detractors claim that some of the story points have been exaggerated and that syndicating Secretariat was easily accomplished and not the cliffhanger depicted in the film. Chenery’s hiring of Secretariat’s trainer Lucien Laurin, played by John Malkovich sporting a series of garish hats, is also overdramatized. Curiously, there is very little interaction between the trainer and his star horse in the movie. The characterizations of Secretariat’s devoted groom Eddie Sweat (Nelsan Ellis) and jockey Ronnie Turcotte (Otto Thorwar
th) seem closer to the truth. Purists might want to read veteran sportswriter William Nack’s book Secretariat, The Making of a Champion, on which the screenplay was based. Despite its flaws, the movie does a great job depicting the racing action. All the racing scenes were staged except The Preakness, which is archival footage of the actual race seen in the film on the Tweedy family television.

  Five main horses were required to portray Secretariat and more were used for the race sequences. Head wrangler Rusty Hendrickson put the word out that he was looking for handsome chestnut horses with calm temperaments. Soundness was a key requirement. As Secretariat was a muscular horse with a short back and round hip, America Quarter Horses were considered as well as Thoroughbreds. One Quarter Horse named Copper made the cut. The rest of the horses were Thoroughbreds, including one named Sky, who was a descendant of the famous Triple Crown winner. Trainer Rex Peterson’s horse Harbor Mist, who was one of the main horses in Dreamer, was utilized for a scene where Secretariat acts up as he is led across the stable yard at the Belmont track. Longshot Max and Trolley Boy, chosen by the real Penny Chenery as winner of a Secretariat look-alike contest, did most of the close-up work with the actors. Trolley Boy’s markings were very similar to the real Secretariat who had three white socks, a star and narrow stripe. Assistant wrangler Lisa Brown painted the Secretariat doubles to match, creating all the white markings. Sometimes white would have to be painted out, sometimes added as for the solid chestnut Longshot Max. He is the horse seen in a particularly emotional scene with Diane Lane when Chenery is shown communicating with Secretariat telepathically before the Kentucky Derby.

  Despite their excellent work on camera, none of the movie horses has the charisma of the real Secretariat who was known for being a ham. To see the spectacular stallion in action, cavorting in his pasture and posing for photographers, take a look at the bonus features on the DVD release of the film.

  Secretariat Star Diane Lane and head wrangler Rusty Hendrickson with Longshot Max, whose white markings were hand-painted by assistant wrangler and photographer, Lisa Brown.

  Endurance Races

  Nothing could be more elemental than the intense bond between a man—or woman—and a horse required by the demands of an endurance race. Covering hundreds, even thousands, of miles together over all kinds of terrain in variable weather conditions, these partners are totally reliant upon one another to make it to the finish line.

  Run, Appaloosa, Run

  The controversial Omak Stampede and World Famous Suicide Race in northeastern Washington State was the setting for the Disney theatrical featurette Run, Appaloosa, Run. It is unlikely that Disney would make a film about this race today as the Omak Stampede has received much bad publicity because thirteen horses have been killed in the race since 1983. Although not long like most endurance races, the Omak Stampede is treacherous, with a 120-foot running start, a 210-foot downhill plunge into a river of varying depths, and for the survivors, a final sprint of 500 feet. Animal-rights organizations have been working since the mid-1980s to abolish the race.

  In 1966, however, no such controversy surrounded Run, Appaloosa, Run. The fictitious story concerns an orphaned Appaloosa and a young Nez Perce woman who rescued him as a colt. Adele Palacios played Mary Blackfeather, the young woman who is obligated to sell the colt, Holy Smoke, to help her tribe. After Holy Smoke has been abused and passed from owner to owner, Mary discovers him working with a rodeo clown, outfitted in humiliating donkey ears and baggy pants for the amusement of the crowd. When an enraged Brahma bull charges the stallion, Mary’s dog, Silver, a highly trained Australian Shepherd, comes to the rescue. Once again, Mary saves the Appaloosa, this time by purchasing him. She trains him for the suicide race even though she knows that as a woman she will not be permitted by her tribe to enter. Inspecting his tribal herds in his 1926 classic convertible, Chief Greystone (Walter Cloud) is impressed when Mary and Holy Smoke come thundering out of the blue to jump the stalled car. He tacitly gives his consent for Mary to enter the race.

  A charismatic sorrel stallion, with a spotted hip blanket, named Baldy’s Holy Smoke played the lead equine role. Formerly owned by Ross Worthington of Spokane, Washington, the stallion was purchased by Disney and trained by the late Jimmy Williams, renowned for producing international show jumpers. Holy Smoke did all his own stunts in the film, including the car jump and the climactic 210-foot downhill charge into the Okanogan River during the race’s grand finale. Filming took place during the actual race, and director Larry Lansburgh, an experienced horseman and camera operator, got into the act and handheld an 85mm camera while galloping down a 250-foot sand track into the river. The rider’s eye view gives the film an extra dose of realism. Run, Appaloosa, Run of course, has the requisite Disney happy ending, with Mary and Holy Smoke winning the grueling race after some suspenseful moments. It’s interesting to note that former singing cowboy star Rex Allen narrated the film and sang the title song.

  Bite the Bullet

  A much darker movie, Bite the Bullet (1975) also featured an orphaned Appaloosa. Directed by the veteran Richard Brooks, the gritty film dramatized a 700-mile endurance race across mountains and desert in the American West at the turn of the century. Shot in Nevada and New Mexico, the movie stars Gene Hackman as Sam Clayton, a cowboy hired to escort a fancy Thoroughbred racehorse to the start of the race. Clayton’s intrinsic goodness is revealed at the outset when he interrupts his mission to rescue an Appaloosa colt from an abandoned glue wagon. The colt’s plight is unflinchingly depicted with graphic shots of his deceased mother, who had been tethered by a metal ring through her nose. Clayton hoists the little fellow onto his saddle and cradles him with his free arm until he finds a young boy tending horses on a ranch. Satisfied he has found a good home for the orphan, he gives the colt to the boy.

  Hackman’s mount, a buckskin Quarter Horse gelding named—you guessed it—Buck, belonged to the movie’s wrangler Rudy Ugland, who said he was “probably the best horse I ever owned in my life. The horse I started my business with, my own personal horse.” Buck was bred by Bronc Curry in Montana and was a roping ranch horse. He was eight years old when Ugland purchased him and began taking him on film sets to get him used to the frenetic atmosphere. Four years later, the horse appeared in Bite the Bullet, his first film. His movie career lasted two decades, and he died of natural causes at age thirty-six. The little Appaloosa colt was out of a mustang mare owned by the wrangler as well, but after working with him for a year, Rudy decided he wasn’t movie material, and he was sold as a pleasure horse. The colt’s dead movie mama was a very realistic-looking stuffed horse.

  After delivering the Thoroughbred mare to her owner in time for the start of the race, Hackman’s Clayton enters the competition, pitting himself and Buck against his old friend Luke Matthews (James Coburn), Miss Jones (Candice Bergen), a whore who needs the purse, and Carbo (Jan-Michael Vincent), a brash young man who misdirects his need for attention by abusing women and animals. In the field also are Ben Johnson, in a brief cameo as Mister, Ian Bannen as a British sportsman foolish enough to attempt the race in an English saddle, and Mario Arteaga as a poor Mexican. Robert Hoy portrays Lee Christie, rider of the fancy mare, who was actually not a Thoroughbred at all but an Arabian. James Coburn rode a Quarter Horse called Brownie, and Candice Bergen was mounted on a big beautiful dappled gray named Dude. Both horses belonged to Rudy Ugland, as did Jan-Michael Vincent’s mount, Cricket, who has the most excruciating scene in the entire film.

  The script called for the horse to be literally ridden to death. He had to look as if he just dropped dead so could not be pulled into a fall. Drugs, still permitted by the AHA at the time, would have to be used to create the desired effect. A week in advance of shooting, a test was made with a veterinarian to determine how long it would take Cricket to fall after being administered a nonlethal shot of phenobarbital. Six seconds was all it took. Then Ugland and the filmmakers figured out how far the little bay horse could travel in those six seconds
and planned the shot accordingly. The sequence was staged in sand dunes, and a softened landing spot was prepared. Covered with shaving cream sweat, Cricket really looks awful as Jan-Michael Vincent pushes him those terrible six seconds before he collapses. The sequence was shot in agonizingly slow motion, and the sound of the horse struggling for breath was amplified for effect. After his horse was down, Carbo began to beat him. While this action was simulated, the drug caused Cricket’s tongue to loll out, making the scene all the more gut-wrenching. Once Cricket revived, he was sponged off and given his oats for a good day’s work. He went on to do many more films for Rudy Ugland.

  The realism of the equine action in Bite the Bullet and the unsentimental depiction of the human qualities that drive such intense competition combined to make a compelling film that, as Clayton helps his buckskin to the finish line, ultimately celebrates that elemental connection between a man and a horse.

  Rudy Ugland’s prized horse Buck served Gene Hackman well during the arduous filming of Bite the Bullet.

  Hidalgo

  “Nobody hurts my horse,” says cowboy Frank T. Hopkins in a soft growl before sending his nemesis to his doom in the old-fashioned epic adventure Hidalgo (2004), which centers on a 3,000-mile endurance race across the Arabian desert. Playing Hopkins, actor Viggo Mortensen became so bonded with his pinto costar RH Tecontender, or TJ, that the words could have been his. They were penned by American Paint Horse aficionado John Fusco, who spent years researching his screenplay, based on the writings of Hopkins, a half-Native American cowboy who, on his red-and-white mustang Hidalgo, is credited with winning four hundred endurance races. There has been much controversy about the veracity of Hopkins’s claims, especially the existence of the pivotal race of Hidalgo. In the film, set in 1890, Hopkins and his eight-year-old mustang, Hidalgo, are challenged by Sheik Riyadh to compete in the Arabian Desert Challenge, across 3,000 miles of brutal terrain known as the Ocean of Fire. At stake for the sheik (Omar Sharif) is his family honor, symbolized by his prized black Arabian stallion, Al-Hattal. At stake for Hopkins is his own personal honor, shattered when, as a United States Calvary dispatch rider, he unwittingly delivered the orders that instigated the Indian massacre at Wounded Knee. More than that, Hopkins rides for the honor of his horse—a lowly mustang in the eyes of the sheik, one unfit for breeding or unworthy of his claim to fame as the world’s greatest endurance horse. After debasing himself by performing drunk in Buffalo Bill Cody’s Wild West Show in New York, Hopkins rises to the occasion, and he and Hidalgo board a ship for Morocco to face the greatest challenge of their lives.