10. Horse Laughs and Bits

I think half of this belongs to a horse somewhere out in the valley.

—Lee Marvin, on accepting his Best Actor Oscar for Cat Ballou

The classic: Smokey and Lee Marvin in Cat Ballou.

When warned about being upstaged by a powerful male costar, Marilyn Monroe famously quipped, “It’s not him I’m worried about, it’s those hammy horses.” Marilyn was only half-kidding. Movie horses have been known to hog the limelight, sometimes drawing attention to themselves through sheer presence. It’s difficult to ignore someone who weighs at least a thousand pounds, even when he’s just cavorting in the background, much less when he’s performing clever tricks or wisecracking like a four-legged stand-up comedian. Whether clowning around in a comedy, running away with the leading lady in a romance, or popping up for a cameo in a psychological thriller, the charismatic movie horse has stolen more than a few scenes.

Four-Legged Fun

In 1965’s Cat Ballou, a gray horse named Smokey posed, leaning against a building with his front legs crossed, emulating the hungover appearance of his snoozing rider, Kid Shelleen (Lee Marvin). When the actor accepted his Oscar at the 1966 Academy Awards ceremony for his performance as the drunken gunfighter, he got a big laugh for mentioning his equine costar. Director Elliot Silverstein knew that the “stoned” Smokey would make the shot memorable. To achieve that hilarious image, however, Smokey was forced to resort to method acting: he was drugged. Owned by the Fat Jones Stable and trained by Al Janks, Smokey was recognized for his work with a Craven Award from the American Humane Association, which was probably unaware of the training “method” used for the famous scene. Overlooked was his stunt double, who was featured in a comic sequence in which the drunken Shelleen does some fancy trick riding. Lee Marvin was doubled by Tap Canutt in that sequence.

The makers of Cat Ballou weren’t the first to exploit the horse’s comedic potential. In the 1920s and ’30s, Lionel Comport specialized in renting extremely sway-backed nags to the studios, which paid fifteen to thirty dollars a day for these walking sight gags. In the late silent film Wrong Again, 1929, the comedians Laurel and Hardy work at a racetrack, looking after a horse named “Blue Boy.” Later they hear that a millionaire has lost Blue Boy. Not realizing that the missing Blue Boy is the famous painting by Gainsborough, the bunglers deliver the horse to the millionaire’s house, expecting a reward. He calls to them from upstairs, saying to put “Blue Boy” on the piano. Of course they do (off-screen), creating a fabulous visual punch line.  The Marx Brothers got laughs in A Day at the Races (1937) as veterinarian Groucho dispenses advice to an ailing horse, and jockey Harpo motivates his mount to run by showing him a picture of a man he hates. Abbott and Costello’s It Ain’t Hay (1943) features a ridiculously “disguised” horse—named Teabiscuit, in parody of Seabiscuit—wearing dark glasses and slippers, being sneaked into a hotel room. Bob Hope looks as if he is getting racing tips straight from the horse’s mouth in The Lemon Drop Kid (1951), but really the nag is just nibbling a lemon drop placed behind Hope’s ear.

Laughs are at the expense of this extremely sway-backed nag, rented for his pathetic appearance, in this gag publicity shot for A Day at the Races with the Marx Brothers.

Stan Laurel (right) and Oliver Hardy (left) in the 1929 comedy of errors, Wrong Again, in which “Blue Boy” winds up on top of a piano.

Colorful Characters

Paints, palominos, an ornery red roan, and a pure white stallion were among the equine comedians who added spice to a variety of humorous roles.

Dice

Roy Rogers’s Little Trigger, who had the famous cover-stealing scene with bedmate Bob Hope in Son of Paleface, wasn’t the only cowboy horse to kick up his hooves in a comedy. Dice, Ralph McCutcheon’s black-and-white pinto, guest starred in 1943’s It’s a Great Life, one of a series of movies based on the comic-strip characters of Blondie and Dagwood Bumstead. In the film, Dagwood (Arthur Lake) is sent by his boss, Dithers (Jonathan Hale), to buy a house. In typical bumbling fashion, Dagwood mistakenly buys a horse, named Reggie (Dice), instead.

Dice proves to be quite the comedian, displaying his full repertoire of tricks, which include lying down and hiding behind a sofa; and entering an elevator, changing his mind, backing out, and taking the stairs. In addition to providing lots of physical gags, his deadpan looks make him a perfect foil for the mugging actors.

Dice (as Reggie) lets Blondie (Penny Singelton) know what he thinks of his vitamin pills in It’s A Great Life.

Trainer Ralph McCutcheon taught Dice many tricks, such as sitting, which came in handy to frustrate Arthur Lake’s Dagwood when he tries to impress a business associate.

The cast of 1943’s It’s A Great Life clown around in this publicity shot with Dice as Reggie the Horse. From left, Penny Singleton (Blondie), Marjorie Ann Mutchie (Cookie), Larry Simms (ALexander), Daisy the dog, and bringing up the rear, Dagwood’s boss Dithers as played by Jonathan Hale.

King Cotton

A whole galaxy of Hollywood stars made cameo appearances in the 1960 comedy Pepe, but Ralph McCutcheon’s trick horse King Cotton stole the show. A big white American Saddlebred-Morab cross, the stallion had incredible screen presence. The Mexican comedian Cantinflas stars as Pepe, a poor stable boy who loves a stallion named Don Juan, whom he has raised from a colt. When the horse is put up for auction, Pepe gets Don Juan to feign illness so he won’t be sold. Ted Holt (Dan Dailey), a washed-up film director desperate for cash, sees through the ruse and buys the “sick” stallion at a bargain price, hoping to make a fortune from stud fees. Pepe winds up in Hollywood caring for Don Juan at Holt’s dilapidated estate. Since there is no green pasture or stable, Don Juan beds down on the closest thing resembling a lawn: a billiard table. Throughout the film, Pepe calls Don Juan his son, causing silly misunderstandings. This tiresome running gag is forgiven every time King Cotton, as Don Juan, appears on screen.

For the beginning scenes of Don Juan playing sick, King Cotton was trained to limp, as was McCutcheon’s Highland Dale for Giant. He had all the same tricks as Dice, including going up and down stairs. One of the most outrageous scenes has Don Juan swimming in Holt’s pool. The sequence begins with a quick shot of Don Juan surfacing from underwater, then cuts to the actors and back to the swimming horse. A fake horse head was used for the surfacing shot. King Cotton deservedly won a PATSY Award from American Humane for his efforts.

The stallion continued his acting career through the sixties. Charlton Heston rode him in 1962’s Diamond Head, and he appeared in The Virginian television series. His last known film was Viva Max (1969), in which he was ridden by Peter Ustinov. Despite these appearances, King Cotton never again got the chance to shine quite as brightly on the screen as he had in Pepe.

Wearing a sensible sun hat, King Cotton, as Pepe’s Don Juan, practices horse paddling much to the amusement of costars Cantinflas and Shirley Jones.

Old Fooler

The Rounders (1965) prominently featured a cantankerous blaze-faced red roan horse named Old Fooler, who gives cowboys Ben Jones (Glenn Ford) and Howdy Lewis (Henry Fonda) a bad time. After corralling stray cattle and breaking wild horses for Jim Ed Love (Chill Wills), the two cowboys take the roan to the Sedona, Arizona, rodeo and challenge all comers to ride the unbreakable bronc. Old Fooler, who has repeatedly bucked off Ben, foils the cowboys by sitting down instead of bucking for money.

Old Fooler was destined for stardom. V. J. Spacey bought a chocolate roan Quarter Horse-type mare at auction in Lancaster, California, and she turned out to be in foal with Old Fooler, a distinctive red roan colt. Fat Jones acquired him when he was three and, according to trainer Ken Lee, “half-spoiled and half-broke.” Director Burt Kennedy was scouting horses for The Rounders at the Fat Jones Stable and spotted Old Fooler alone in a corral. He liked the horse’s looks and cast him on the spot. Lee was skeptical that the roan, as ornery as his movie character, would learn the tricks required by the script, but eight weeks later, he was camera ready. Lee had taught Old Fooler to sit, bite on command, drag a man through mud, and untie knots. In one silly scene in The Rounders, Old Fooler spots an attractive mare’s rump, unties the mare from a hitching rail, and leads her out of the barn. Old Fooler later learned how to drink from a bottle for his role in another movie, Flap (1970), in which he played a drunken horse named H-Bomb.

Old Fooler goes on strike on the set of The Rounders.

Albarado

In 1968, the beautiful dappled steel gray gelding Albarado won the PATSY for his role as the title character in Disney’s The Horse in a Gray Flannel Suit. Dean Jones starred as Fred Bolton, an advertising executive who convinces his boss to buy a horse for his daughter, Helen (Ellen Janov), to campaign in prestigious competitions. The idea is for the horse to attract publicity for an antacid. The horse, named Aspercel after the medicine, runs away after Fred insults him. Comically clad in boxer shorts and bedroom slippers, Fred frantically chases the gray. Finally catching him, Fred makes several futile attempts to mount bareback. After playing hard to get, “Aspy” gives in and sticks his head between Fred’s legs while the hapless human is standing on a wall. Fred slides down Aspy’s neck and off they go on a wild ride, pursued by the police, who think the horse has been stolen. Apsy redeems himself by winning the championship in the open-jumping division at the Washington International Horse Show.

Albarado, the big gray Thoroughbred who played the jumping Aspercel, was trained by Jimmy Williams. His double, appearing in the comedic sequence with Jones, performed a number of tricks, including drinking beer from a cup. Both horses were immensely talented, but Albarado picked up the PATSY. As with Cat Ballou’s Smokey, the star got all the credit.

Albarado, escorted by Jimmy Williams’s assistant trainer Karlie Anderson, picks up his award for The Horse in the Gray Flannel Suit from Denver Pyle at the 19th Annual PATSY ceremony.

Sam

A most memorable sight gag in Mel Brooks’s Blazing Saddles (1974) involves a stunt horse who takes a fall from a standstill when the hulking Mongo (Alex Karras) punches him out of sheer meanness on his way into a bar. The perfectly timed bit is brief but packed a visual wallop. A subtler running gag is in the appearance of Sheriff Bart’s steed. Bart (Cleavon Little), the first black sheriff in the West, was mounted on a flashy palomino, a visual reference to Trigger, the sidekick of Roy Rogers. The slick and urban Bart couldn’t be more different from the squeaky-clean cowboy.

The palomino Sam fell on hard times after his movie career ended, when his owner of eight years had a stroke. He was rescued by a wonderful southern California organization called HorseAid and lived out the rest of his days at pasture, surrounded by fellow retirees.

Fido

Fifty-seven years after Dice tickled moviegoers with his antics, another pinto charmed audiences with his physical comedy in the Western spoof Shanghai Noon (2000). The movie concerns a member of China’s Imperial Guard, Chon Wang (mispronounced as “John Wayne”), who comes to Nevada to rescue the kidnapped Princess Pei Pei (Lucy Liu). Chon (Jackie Chan) rescues a young Native American girl and is honored by the chief with a wife and a trick pinto pony named Fido. Chon hooks up with a goofy train robber, Roy O’Bannon (Owen Wilson), and together they save the princess. Since it’s a Jackie Chan movie, there is plenty of fighting action, much of it comic, but the charming red-and-white pinto steals all his scenes.

Fido was just four when head wrangler John Scott picked him and two doubles to try out for the role as Chon’s horse. Trainer Claude Chaussé, whom Scott recruited from Montreal after seeing his accordion-playing horse during a live show, spent only a few minutes with the three pintos before declaring Fido to be the smartest. The wrangler was amazed by Chaussé’s keen perception and his noncoercive training methods. “He works strictly out of kindness,” Scott observed.

An excellent study, Fido was trained to lie down, sit, kiss, come to a whistle, and, most difficult of all, drink a bottle of “whiskey.” The bottle, of course, was plastic, but the shots of Fido chugging from it are real, not computer generated. One of Fido’s cutest scenes, in which he repeatedly reaches around and removes his saddle blanket with his teeth as Chon tries to saddle him, is an homage to his movie-horse role model, Dear John, the Appaloosa who pulled the same trick on Gregory Peck in The Big Country (1958). After the movie, the young pinto remained as part of John Scott’s movie herd in Alberta, Canada.

Clowning around on the set of Shanghai noon, Fido sits while his costar Jackie Chan makes like a reptile.

Action-Packed Laughs

Arnold Schwarzenegger and director James Cameron used a horse for comic relief in the 1994 action thriller True Lies. Secret agent Harry Tasker (Schwarzenegger) commandeers a policeman’s mount for an outrageous chase scene that includes a gallop through a luxury hotel and a ride in its glass elevator. The action culminates in a humorous rooftop tete à tete between man and horse, whose wisdom prevailed in not following the villain, on a motorcycle, over the edge. The sequence was spoofed by Leslie Nielsen in Spy Hard (1996), right down to the same formally clad stunt performers from True Lies, Loren Janes and May Boss, in the elevator. The Spy Hard sequence, however, culminates in horse and rider crashing through a wall and going over the building’s edge after the bad guy, who is absurdly riding a lawn mower.

For True Lies, head wrangler James Halty found six different horses for various aspects of the sequence. Director Cameron wanted a big Thoroughbred for the equine cameo. With the old Hollywood stables no longer in existence and the smaller rental outfits having mostly Quarter Horse types, Halty, a former jumper rider himself, turned to Los Angeles-area show barns for help. He found the handsome lead horse, Ernie, at Foxfield Riding School in Westlake Village. A beautiful 16.2-hand chestnut Thoroughbred with a white stripe and two white socks, Ernie had previously found fame as a successful show horse named Tommy Tucker. Retired from competition, Ernie was being used for lessons. A gentle giant, he suited Arnold Schwarzenegger perfectly and performed in all the close-up scenes with the actor.

M.E.L.’s Paul Elliott and the animatronic Ernie from True Lies

Since Ernie was leased to the production with the stipulation that he not be jumped, two jumping doubles were required for the wild chase through the hotel lobby, during which the horse leaps over furniture. Two more horses were used for the outdoor portion of the chase. A sixth horse performed a bowing trick, but that scene wound up on the cutting-room floor. A set was built for the elevator interior scenes with the star and stunt performers, who were not required to do anything but react to the horse. However, Loren Janes and May Boss were deliberately cast to handle any safety issues that might arise working on such a small set with a large animal. Fortunately, the scene went smoothly, and the dressed-up couple’s response to sharing an elevator with a horse is priceless. For an exterior long shot of the horse and actors going up in the glass elevator, an animatronic horse was used for two reasons: first for safety, and second because the real horse, at more than a thousand pounds, was simply too heavy for the elevator.

The special-effects house of M.E.L (Makeup & Effects Laboratories, Inc.) was contracted to build Ernie’s replica. Starting with a life-size fiberglass horse, the effects team crafted a new head and mechanical neck from metal and latex foam. Working from photographs of Ernie, Jeremy Aiello sculpted the animatronic parts. M.E.L. partner Paul Elliott had the job of operating the animatronic horse from inside, with foot pedals and hand levers. Equipped with a radio earpiece so he could take direction and cooled by fans and cold packs, Elliott spent four long hours inside the fake Ernie while the elevator sequence was shot. Who says show business isn’t glamorous?

In addition to the exterior elevator shot, the animatronic Ernie was used for a quick insert in the rooftop sequence in which Schwarzenegger appears to be hanging by the horse’s reins. The animatronic took three months to build at a cost of $150,000. After the movie, he was “retired” to an exhibit in a Planet Hollywood restaurant, since closed.

The real Ernie returned to his job at Foxfield Riding School after True Lies and continued to work with young students. He was also a member of Foxfield’s famous drill team, which performs without the benefit of saddles or bridles. Later, an adult student, Sue Lawrence, fell in love with the handsome chestnut gelding. Joanne Postell, who owns Foxfield, gave Ernie to her. He moved to Flagstaff, Arizona, with his new owner and spent the rest of his days enjoying a quiet life.

The producers of Spy Hard commissioned another animatronic from M.E.L. for their spoof sequence. In Leslie Nielsen’s rooftop scene, the horse slides on his haunches. This animatronic was modified to sit and slide on wheels. When the horse goes over the edge, the “stunt horse” is shown to be an obvious dummy, with computer-enhanced lips, as it mugs and curses on descent.

The Talkers

Loquacious equines have gotten laughs since 1949, when Francis, the Talking Mule, debuted in Francis, the first of seven films featuring the wildly popular novelty.

Francis

In the kickoff film of the Francis series, Donald O’Connor plays Peter Sterling, a bungling army private who makes friends with a talking mule. O’Connor costarred with Francis in the next five films, Francis Goes to the Races (1951), Francis Goes to West Point (1952), Francis Covers the Big Town (1953), Francis Joins the WACS (1954), and Francis in the Navy (1955). By 1956, O’Connor had tired of playing second fiddle to a mule, and Mickey Rooney took over to costar in Francis in the Haunted House. The chemistry between Rooney and Francis just wasn’t right, and the movie flopped, ending the popular feature series. In all the films, cowboy star Chill Wills provided the gravelly voice of Francis, who was actually a female mule named Molly.

Gambling on the concept put forth in a novel by David Stern, Universal Pictures had purchased the untrained but tractable Molly for $350 in 1948. While Stern busied himself writing the screenplay for Francis, trainer Les Hilton went to work teaching Molly a number of tricks. By the time the cameras rolled, Molly could climb stairs, untie a rope with her teeth, and wink on cue. She flatly refused to sit, however, and was doubled by another trick mule for any sitting scenes. To make Molly “talk,” Hilton reportedly tried chewing gum and chewing tobacco. When neither worked, he crafted a bridle with a heavy thread running under her top lip. When the thread was pulled, Molly wiggled her lips. An overnight sensation, Molly, known to her adoring public forever after as Francis, won the first ever PATSY Award for Francis. She would win two more PATSYs in her career, for Francis Goes to West Point and Frances Joins the WACS. Francis was also immortalized in Dell comic books.

The fruits, or in this case, grains, of success brought an actress’s familiar problem to the equine leading lady: the struggle to maintain a perfect figure. Molly gained so much weight between her first and second picture that she was ordered by the studio to shed two hundred pounds. Her hay ration was reduced and like many a weight-conscious star, she took up jogging. When diet and enforced trots up and down the Hollywood hills behind a station wagon only resulted in a hundred-pound loss, Molly sweated off the next hundred in a steam room custom built for her.

Molly as Francis the Talking Mule and costar Donald O’Connor square off in Francis in the Navy (1955).

If you look closely at Molly’s halter, you can see the line of thread that trainer Les Hilton devised to create “Francis the Talking Mule” running from the noseband to the cheek piece in this publicity shot from 1954.

Francis (Molly) takes the stand in this courtroom scene.

Mister Ed

The wisecracking equine who embarrasses a human confidant by refusing to talk in front of other humans was a surefire formula. It fueled the premise of the beloved CBS television series Mister Ed. Conceived by Arthur Lubin, who directed all the Francis films, the series was based on twenty-eight short stories by Walter Brooks. In the series, Alan Young starred as architect Wilbur Post, a befuddled sort who was the perfect foil for the dry-witted Mister Ed. In the pilot episode, Wilbur and his scatterbrained wife Carol (Connie Hines) move into a new house that comes with a palomino horse in the backyard stable. Much to Wilbur’s surprise, the palomino, Mister Ed, begins to talk—but only to him. In the memorable first episode, Ed proves his elocution skills to Wilbur by quipping drolly, “How now, brown cow.” An instant success, the series ran on CBS from 1961 to 1966, before going into syndication. It was revived in the 1980s by the cable network Nickelodeon’s popular Nick at Nite series.

Mister Ed was played by the gelding Bamboo Harvester, foaled in El Monte, California, in 1949. His grandsire, the Harvester, was an American saddlebred and his sire, Chief Tonganoizie, was out of an Arabian mare. His dam, Zetna, was pure Arabian. A show and parade horse in his early years, Bamboo Harvester was eleven when Filmways Television Productions purchased him for $1,500. Because of his experience with Francis, Les Hilton was contracted to transform the palomino into Mister Ed. Hilton stabled the horse in his own backyard in the Burbank Rancho residential area near Los Angeles’s Griffith Park. Living in such close proximity enabled Hilton to develop a strong bond with the palomino, who turned out to be a remarkable actor. He easily learned whatever tricks were needed for the week’s episode, and scripts were written to showcase his talents. Ed learned to open doors, untie knots, answer the phone, and wield a large pencil to write notes. In one episode, he authored the memoir “Love and the Single Horse.” He was often dressed up in silly costumes for stints as an artist, a surfer, a Beatles fan, a baseball player, a pilot, a playboy, a dancer, and a scholar, but no matter what the equine chameleon was up to each week, he remained a loyal friend to Wilbur. One trick Mister Ed could not master without artificial aid was talking. Hilton employed the same technique he had used with Francis and threaded an invisible nylon filament through Ed’s halter and under his top lip. When the off-screen trainer tugged on the line, Mister Ed “talked.” This is why Mister Ed was never seen in talking scenes without his handsome leather halter. His deep masculine voice was provided by former cowboy star Allan “Rocky” Lane. The actor’s identity was kept secret, and the credits simply read: “Mister Ed … Himself.”

Mister Ed had one double, Pumpkin, who looked almost exactly like him, except for a slightly darker nose and a pumpkin shaped spot at the top of his white blaze, easily disguised with clown makeup. Pumpkin was used mostly as a stand-in for Ed, so the star would not get tired during lighting set-ups. Pumpkin was reportedly used only twice in the series, in episodes “TV or Not TV” and “Ed the Hero.” Pumpkin also appeared with Eddie Albert and Eva Gabor on Green Acres in the late 1960s and was featured in some pudding commercials.

Alan Young has fond memories of working with Mister Ed. In his book Mister Ed and Me, Young remembers following Mister Ed’s horse trailer to work and watching his snowy tail. “If his tail was tucked down behind the tailgate, it meant he wasn’t quite awake yet. But if it was outside the gate, flowing in the breeze, he was ready and eager. On those days, when we pulled onto the lot, he would begin stamping on the trailer floor, impatient to start acting.”

Bamboo Harvester really did seem to enjoy his work and was a consummate professional who rarely required more than one take of a scene. Famous guest stars such as Clint Eastwood, Zsa Zsa Gabor, and Mae West got a kick out of working with the palomino, who won PATSY Awards as Mister Ed four times in a row, from 1962 to 1965. Kids hooked on the series could have their own Mister Ed talking puppet made by the Mattel toy company.

After the Mister Ed series ended, Les Hilton continued to care for Bamboo Harvester at his Burbank home. Alan Young frequently visited his former costar and always got a thrill when he saw his handsome blaze face poking out of his stall. One day in 1968, however, Les Hilton greeted Young with sad news. At age nineteen, Ed had died after being given a tranquilizer by a well-meaning caretaker who thought he was having a seizure. What the caretaker didn’t know was that because of his rather top-heavy conformation, Ed always thrashed about trying to get on his feet after lying down. Ed’s tragic demise was withheld from the public so as not to upset fans still enjoying the series in syndication.

Trainer Les Hilton passed away in 1976, after a long career training some of the most beloved equines of television and movies. Wrangler Rudy Ugland, who received his basic training from Hilton, remembered him fondly in a 2004 interview. In describing Hilton’s incredible rapport with horses, Ugland said that while he was wrangling for Hilton, the trainer “would never let me catch a horse, feed a horse, or put him away. He wanted his horses totally dependent on him.” The carefully created bond between trainer and horse resulted in some of the most exceptional horse work ever captured on film. With Mister Ed, Les Hilton helped create an enduring icon of American popular culture.

Mister Ed looks over his lines with costar Alan Young.

Trainer Les Hilton checks Mister Ed’s filament while Alan Young and an assistant adjust the star’s tuxedo for a formal scene.

Don

When Warner Brothers studios contracted Corky Randall to train a talking horse for its comedy Hot to Trot (1988), he was determined not to resort to the filament routine that prompted Francis and Mister Ed. Corky and his brother, Glenn Randall Jr., worked with the star horse, Don, and taught him to open his mouth and curl his lips to “speak” by using whip cues. The film stars Bob Goldthwait as Fred P. Chaney, a dimwit who inherits half of a successful brokerage firm and a talking horse, who makes him look like a genius by giving him stock tips. For his role as the clever tipster, Don, a five-year-old bay Thoroughbred from Hemet, California, was also trained by the Randalls to sit, lie down, operate a telephone, flip a light switch, and bring Chaney his newspaper and slippers. Special foam furniture enabled Don to sit comfortably on a chair or sofa for several takes at a time.

The film was not a big success, but Don and the Randalls’ excellent work is worth looking at because of the amazing training breakthrough. Don continued his movie career and had small roles in Heat (1995) and That Thing You Do (1996) as well as numerous television series and commercials.

Don shows off his technique as trained by Corky Randall for Hot To Trot.

Stripes

A talking horse of a very different color is featured in Racing Stripes (2005). This time, the equine star is a zebra who longs to be a racehorse. The film combines live action with computer animation that creates talkers out of a whole menagerie à la Babe, the 1995 comedy hit about a talking pig.

Widower and single dad Nolan Walsh (Bruce Greenwood) finds a baby zebra that a traveling circus abandoned by the side of a road. He takes him home to his farm, where the little fellow grows up among a barnyard of talking animals. Named Stripes, the zebra finds a friend in Nolan’s fourteen-year-old daughter, Channing (Hayden Panettiere), who helps him realize his dream.

Trainers Heath Harris and Bob Lovgren headed a huge team who worked with the horses and zebras on location in South Africa for Racing Stripes. For one sequence, when Stripes is entered in the Blue Moon Race, a sort of equine drag race held by kids, the trainers had the awesome task of directing forty liberty horses. Months of preparation went into this one scene.

Stripes was played by six different zebras. Since zebras are essentially wild and aggressive, they simply could not be expected to be trained to behave like horses and could not be taught to race. For certain racing scenes, Stripes was doubled by white ponies, painted with zebra stripes by equine makeup artist Tara Lawrence and her team.

Horse Bits

Filmmakers have long known that horses are powerful symbols and useful plot facilitators. In addition to amusing us with clever tricks, horses have made cameo appearances in thrillers, dramas, and fluffy romantic movies. Director Stanley Kramer cast Ralph McCutcheon’s palomino Sunny in a small but crucial role in the romantic drama Not as a Stranger (1955). The gorgeous palomino is part of a seduction sequence, as a sultry horse breeder (Gloria Grahame) teases a married doctor (Robert Mitchum) by jumping Sunny over a fence, inviting the doctor for a drink, and galloping away. The doctor’s sexual frustration is obviously symbolized in a later sequence as California, a palomino stallion doubling Sunny, rears and whinnies in his stall, pining for a nearby mare. The horse’s urgent whinnies are background music for a scene that culminates with Graham and Mitchum locked in a passionate embrace.

Director Alfred Hitchcock particularly appreciated the dramatic qualities of horses and used them to terrific advantage in Notorious (1946), in which Ingrid Bergman’s runaway mount facilitates a rendezvous with Cary Grant and later in the psychological thriller Marnie (1964), in which the troubled title character’s independent nature is emphasized by her relationship with a black hunter, Forio.

Tippi Hedren, the title character in Alfred Hitchcock’s 1964 thriller Marnie, develops a bond with a horse named Forio.

In one unforgettable scene, Marnie’s husband (Sean Connery) surprises Marnie (Tippi Hedren) by giving her the horse she had previously just rented. The horse is delivered to their front door, and although she is wearing a yellow chiffon cocktail dress, Marnie impulsively jumps aboard Forio and gallops off over a fence. The unusual image says more about Marnie’s nature than reams of dialogue could possibly convey.

Jennifer Lopez steps into Ingrid Bergman’s stirrups for The Wedding Planner (2001), when she goes riding with clients and her horse runs away, leaving Matthew McConaughey no choice but to rescue her. It’s a plot device as old as the hills, yet the runaway horse sequence adds glamour and excitement to this modern romance. In 28 Days (2000), Sandra Bullock’s character is introduced to equine-assisted therapy as a means of overcoming substance abuse. In reality, horses are used in a number of therapeutic situations. Through special riding programs throughout America, horses help handicapped kids to develop physically, mentally, and emotionally. Inner-city kids find self-esteem caring for and riding horses. In addition to working with the disadvantaged, horses teach prisoners work ethics and compassion in rehabilitation programs, which utilize former racehorses. Big Spender (2003), starring Casper Van Dien and a number of Canadian Thoroughbreds, was a television movie made for the Animal Planet cable network that featured such a program. From movies such as these, modern audiences are coming to understand Winston Churchill’s wise words, “There’s something about the outside of a horse that’s good for the inside of a man.”

The Last Laugh...

The horse may have had his heyday in Hollywood, but he keeps making a comeback. His presence was strongly felt at the 2004 Academy Awards Ceremony.

In a filmed spoof of the Oscar-nominated movies, host Billy Crystal galloped one of the racing stars of Seabiscuit and rode Shadowfax up the staircase in The Lord of the Rings, The Return of the King. To create the illusions, the actor’s head was placed on the bodies of Tobey Maguire and Sir Ian McKellen through the magic of CGI, but the horses were the real thing. The bits got the biggest laugh of the night.