Hollywood Hoofbeats

by Petrine Day Mitchum

  Paden lands in jail, where Emmett’s brother Jake (Kevin Costner) awaits hanging after an unjust trial. Paden and Jake engineer a clever escape, and soon Paden and the brothers are galloping off on the gray, the bay, and the pinto. The bay, however, changes from scene to scene. The first horse has a narrow blaze, another has a star and a white muzzle, and a third has a wider blaze. According to wrangler Ken Lee, the main cast horse had weak knees so although he was gentle enough to work with Kevin Kline in the “love” scene, he was not strong enough for the galloping sequences. The other two bays were doubles, and apparently director Kasdan assumed the action was so fast that no one would notice the different face markings.

  A fourth man, Mal (Danny Glover), joins the heroes; he rides a big blaze-faced sorrel. All the cast horses, with the exception of the pinto and the big gray Quarter Horse ridden by Scott Glenn, were supplied by Corky Randall. The gray was a calf-roping horse owned by a wrangler from Oklahoma. The pinto was a veteran movie horse owned by supplier Denny Allen. Another pinto, Tarzan, also appeared. The most stunning stunt in Silverado occurs in the final gun battle, when Emmett, disarmed, uses the gray to leap out of a barn on top of his nemesis, who is killed.

  Lawrence Kasdan returned to the Old West for 1994’s Wyatt Earp, starring Kevin Costner. Head wrangler Rusty Hendrickson provided the horses. Wyatt Earp rode many horses over the course of his life in the film, but when Earp achieved legend status, Costner rode Baby, a registered Paint red roan with a blaze, a long, narrow body, a good mind, and smooth gaits. Hendrickson originally purchased Baby as a colt for Dances with Wolves and worked with him for four years to turn him into an ideal cast mount for Costner in Wyatt Earp.

  The camera captures a stunt with the gray from Oklahoma in Silverado (1985).

  Dancing with Costner

  Rusty Hendrickson learned about horses from his dad, a rodeo contractor and racehorse trainer. Veteran wrangler Rudy Ugland handpicked Hendrickson as his protégé after working with him on the controversial Heaven’s Gate in 1980. After learning the ropes and toiling uncredited on many films, Hendrickson finally became a head wrangler on 1990’s Dances with Wolves.

  Kevin Costner’s Dances with Wolves won a Best Picture Award for its producer-director-star. The first Western to receive the honor since 1930’s Cimarron, it also marked a victory for its equine star, the buckskin Quarter Horse Plain Justin Bar, who played Cisco. For the first time in many years, a horse received billing in the end credits, albeit next to last, just above Teddy and Buck who played the wolf, Two Socks. A strong character in the film, Cisco bonds with Costner’s character, Lt. John Dunbar, who spends much of his time without human companionship.

  Costner definitely wanted a buckskin for Cisco. After looking at a number of them, Hendrickson finally found the right gelding, bred by Amy Jo and Earl Udy Warren of Heyburn, Idaho. Sired by Impressive Dan, out of Plain Pearl Bar, and foaled on May 1, 1983, Plain Justin Bar was chosen for his color, conformation, and temperament. “He had a certain presence,” Hendrickson later recalled. “He was interested in people and not afraid of things.” A soft-spoken cowboy of John Wayne proportions, Hendrickson approaches training movie horses just as he does his ranch horses—with gentleness and common sense. The result is a good all-around horse who, in Plain Justin Bar’s case, just happens to be a movie star. After production, the handsome gelding was sold to a private party in Pilot Point, Texas.

  As Kicking Bird, Graham Greene rode a pure white Indian pony with blue eyes. The choice was inspired by a poster of a Lakota chief Kevin Costner gave Rusty Hendrickson. In general, blue-eyed horses don’t make good movie horses as their eyes can’t handle the lights for very long. Fortunately, this particular horse did not have to stand for many close-ups so he was fine. He was purchased from a South Dakota man with the proviso that the owner could buy his horse back at the end of the movie. After his brief career in show business, the distinctive white horse was returned to his original owner.

  Kicking Bird’s white Indian pony and Cisco appear to be listening for trouble sneaking up from behind in this shot from Kevin Costner’s Dances with Wolves (1990).

  Eastwood Goes West

  After making a name for himself as a mysterious loner in Sergio Leone’s ultra-violent Italian “spaghetti Westerns,” Clint Eastwood returned to Hollywood to star in Hang ’Em High (1967). Departing from his tough-guy image to appear in the movie version of the hit Western musical Paint Your Wagon (1969), a throwback to more naïve times, Eastwood went on to contribute a fistful of Westerns as both star and director. High Plains Drifter (1973), The Outlaw Josey Wales (1976), Bronco Billy (1980), and Pale Rider (1985) all helped keep the genre—and the Western movie horse—alive.

  Eastwood’s mount in The Outlaw Josey Wales was a well-bred Quarter Horse stallion called Parsons. The stallion had originally been purchased by wrangler Rudy Ugland to play Tom Mix’s horse Tony in a film about the silent star. Parsons, a sorrel with a blaze and stockings like Tony’s, was taught all the tricks necessary to play the famous horse. Although the Mix film never happened, Parsons would go on to be ridden by some of the world’s greatest movie stars. After working with Eastwood, he was Jane Fonda’s mount in 1978’s Comes a Horseman. Steve McQueen rode Parsons in 1979’s Tom Horn. After appearing in many more films, Parsons—who was gelded after his role in The Outlaw Josey Wales—was retired to Ugland’s California ranch.

  In Pale Rider, Eastwood plays Preacher, a sort of avenging angel-gunfighter. Symbolizing both good and evil with his dramatic light and dark coloring, Preacher’s mount is a beautiful dappled gray. Eastwood told wrangler Jay Fishburn, a former jockey, that he wanted the specifically colored horse to have “a lot of star quality.” Fishburn found the striking young gelding For the Moment at a Los Angeles-area racetrack. Fishburn’s friend Spud Proctor, a track outrider, was using the gelding to lead the horses to the starting gate. Although he had never worked in a movie, the gray had the requisite coloring and charisma. After working with the gelding for a few weeks, Fishburn knew For the Moment also had the right temperament. When filming wrapped, the gray resumed his career as a racetrack lead pony.

  As Will Munny, a repentant gunfighter lured back into action, Clint Eastwood rides a less glamorous gray in Unforgiven (1992), a dark, gritty film about violence that won the Best Picture Academy Award for its producer-director-star. This time, Eastwood specifically wanted a flea-bitten gray to match his character’s over-the-hill demeanor. Wrangler John Scott looked long and hard for the right horse and finally found a little gelding named Jerry on the Hobem Indian reservation in Alberta, Canada. Two doubles were also acquired. All the grays were what Scott calls cold-blooded horses of no particular pedigree and thus met Eastwood’s desire to create an unromantic image for himself. The film’s only levity comes from a running gag of the rusty Will having difficulty mounting his equally rusty old horse. After filming, Jerry found a good home as a lesson horse.

  For the Moment’s dark-and-light coloring reflects the dual nature of Clint Eastwood’s Preacher in 1985’s Pale Rider.

  Eastwood chose the flea-bitten gray Jerry to subtly underscore his Unforgiven character’s well-worn appearance.

  Best-Sellers Mount Up

  Robert Redford’s adaptation of the best-selling book by Nicholas Evans The Horse Whisperer (1998) featured seventeen American Quarter Horses provided by trainers Rex Peterson and Buck Brannaman. In addition to Peterson’s accomplished horse, Hightower, as the lead horse Pilgrim, four others were used as doubles. Top Decker Special, Whynotcash, Sierra Ghost, and Maverick all played Pilgrim during different phases of his healing process in the movie. Hightower was in the initial accident scene, the close scenes with Redford, and the final scene when Grace (Scarlett Johansson) regains her confidence to ride Pilgrim again. Peterson’s black stallion, Doc’s Keepin Time (aka Justin), played Gulliver, the horse killed in the truck accident. Robert Redford’s mount, called Rimrock in the film, was played by Rambo Roman, one of Buck Brannaman’s own
horses.

  In 2000, Miramax Films and Columbia Pictures released All the Pretty Horses, directed by Billy Bob Thornton and starring Matt Damon as John Grady Cole. In the screen adaptation of Cormac McCarthy’s popular book, the story focuses on the adventures of the Texas teenager John Grady and his friend Lacey Rawlins (Henry Thomas), who are hired to break mustangs on a Mexican hacienda. Grady falls in love with the ranch owner’s daughter, Alejandra (Penelope Cruz), an excellent equestrienne. Their star-crossed romance is the centerpiece of the movie, yet horses play significant roles throughout.

  Head wrangler Rusty Hendrickson provided his own saddle horse, Dollar, for Matt Damon’s mount, Redbo. In 1983, Hendrickson bought the sorrel Quarter Horse gelding, registered as Cutter Bailey, as a yearling in Montana. Dollar’s experience as Hendrickson’s ranch horse made him perfect for the role of Redbo.

  Another of Hendrickson’s Quarter Horses, Ghost, is the gray ridden by Henry Thomas and called Junior in the film. A third horse was needed as a mount for Lucas Black, who plays the misfit thirteen-year-old Jimmy Blevins. After looking at Saddlebreds, Thoroughbreds, and Walking Horses, Hendrickson chose a charismatic little bay Quarter Horse who appealed to director Thornton.

  Matt Damon, Henry Thomas, Penelope Cruz, and Lucas Black trained for five weeks on horseback before shooting began in Texas. Working with Hendrickson and wranglers Rex Peterson and Monty Stuart, the actors spent eight hours a day in the saddle. They also learned to care for their mounts and did their own saddling, unsaddling, and grooming. The hard work paid off: the actors look completely at ease on and around their movie mounts, about whom Matt Damon has said, “They’re better actors than we are. They’ve been in lots of movies and nothing ruffles them.”

  After laying Pilgrim (Hightower) down, Tom Booker (Robert Redford) aids Grace MacLean (Scarlett Johansson) in mounting her horse for the first time since their traumatic accident in The Horse Whisperer (1998).

  Young Guns Ride

  More than a decade earlier, another group of Hollywood’s hottest young actors had also learned to ride for 1988’s Young Guns. Working with wrangler Jack Lilley, Emilio Estevez, Keifer Sutherland, Lou Diamond Phillips, Charlie Sheen, Dermot Mulroney, and Casey Siemaszko were transformed into a hard-riding band of outlaws. As Billy the Kid, Estevez survived to appear in the 1990 sequel, Young Guns II, along with Kiefer Sutherland as “Doc” Scurlock, Lou Diamond Phillips as Jose Chavez y Chavez, and new gang member Christian Slater as Arkansas Dave Rudabaugh. With sexy young actors, rock-and-roll soundtracks, fast-paced action, and clever dialogue by screenwriter-executive producer John Fusco, the Young Guns movies introduced the Western to a new generation of filmgoers. The horse action in both films is excellent and features registered Quarter Horses owned by Jack Lilley as cast mounts and many trained falling horses.

  In Young Guns, Jack Palance, playing the villain Murphy, was assigned to a frisky horse who made it difficult for the then seventy-one-year-old actor to hit his marks and deliver his lines properly. Palance requested another horse, Tarzan, a sorrel tobiano Paint gelding on the picket line that had caught his eye. Owned by Derwood Herring of Clovis, New Mexico, where the film was shot, Tarzan had previously worked in Silverado and 1986’s Western spoof Three Amigos! The gentle veteran equine actor was brought to the set for the actor, who had no further horse trouble.

  John Fusco and his wife, Richela, were also attracted by Tarzan’s striking looks and obvious intelligence. They took turns riding him between set-ups and were so smitten that they ended up purchasing him. Renamed Chato, he accompanied the Fuscos to their Vermont farm after filming wrapped. John Fusco intended to retire Chato from movie work, but the gelding was called back into action when Young Guns II was produced. In that film, Chato plays the horse who flamboyant brothel owner Jane Greathouse (Jenny Wright) rides nude, à la Lady Godiva, when do-gooders force her out of town. Twenty-three in 2005, Chato was still going strong, ruling the Fusco farm. Another of Fusco’s horses, the sorrel overo Paint mare Wakaya, played the Spirit Horse in Young Guns II.

  Billy Crystal and Beechnut

  Jack Lilley also provided horses for the comedic contemporary Western City Slickers (1991). Billy Crystal’s blaze-faced black horse, the 15-hand Beechnut, was about eleven years old when Lilley leased him from Oregon breeder Frank Russell for the movie. Surprisingly, Beechnut’s dam was a sorrel and white overo pinto mare. As a colt, Beechnut had been a gift for Frank’s young son Charley. Named Charley’s Surprise, the horse acquired his nickname, Beechnut, from a brand of chewing tobacco. He grew up a ranch horse, used for roping and gathering cattle, and was unfazed by the distractions of a movie set.

  Beechnut’s main double for the chase scenes was Licorice, a black roping and cutting Quarter Horse. Jerry Gatlin along with Jack Lilley and his son Clay taught Billy Crystal how to ride and rope. A natural athlete with great hand-eye coordination, Crystal roped the first steer he tried.

  The actor was so pleased with Beechnut in the first movie that he purchased him from the Russells. He wanted to ride him in 1994’s City Slickers II. To make it appear that Crystal was on a new mount, Beechnut’s white blaze was dyed black.

  When hosting the sixty-third-annual Academy Awards in 1991, Crystal made his grand entrance riding Beechnut on stage, sending up the year’s big winner, Dances with Wolves. Horse trainer Lisa Brown, who had looked after Beechnut since City Slickers, spent three days prepping him for his Oscars appearance. Unlike most of the stars on the stage, the horse did not require any special makeup: his ears were left untrimmed and his hooves were dressed with clear oil, not hoof black. Crystal wanted Beechnut to look like the real ranch horse he was.

  Beechnut was retired to an idyllic boarding ranch in Malibu to spend his golden years cruising around a large pasture with a bunch of good old horse buddies. He continued to be cared for by Lisa Brown, who has worked with many celebrity clients. She assisted wrangler Rusty Hendrickson on Seabiscuit (2003) and trainer Rex Peterson on Hidalgo (2004) and said, “I’m always thankful to share time with the glorious movie horse whose character is unmatched.”

  City slicker Billy Crystal with Beechnut and trainer Lisa Brown.

  With his backstage pass for the sixty-third Academy Awards around his neck, Beechnut gets his hooves painted with oil before his grand entrance with Billy Crystal at the gala event.

  Far East Meets West—in the South

  Chinese born director Ang Lee has proven himself adept in a variety of genres. His Civil War-era Western Ride with the Devil (1999) starred Tobey Maguire as Jake Roedel, a young man who joins the Southern loyalist Bushwackers after Union soldiers murder the father of his friend Jack Bull (Skeet Ulrich). Pounding hoofbeats fill the soundtrack in the opening moments, signaling plenty of hard riding to come.

  Head wrangler Rusty Hendrickson’s horse Dollar, the gelding Matt Damon rode in All the Pretty Horses, is Skeet Ulrich’s mount. Tobey Maguire rides a bald-faced sorrel gelding named Blaze for most of the film. A former falling horse, the Arab/Quarter Horse cross was reportedly a handful in his youth. A veteran of many films, Blaze has since mellowed into a good all-around horse. Hendrickson coached Maguire, who did all his own riding in the film. According to Hendrickson, the star proved to be an excellent student. He looks completely at home galloping Blaze. As the budget was tight, horses had to do double duty, and Blaze even did some falls in the battle scenes. He was deservedly retired after the movie.

  Another falling horse used in the battle sequences was Paint That Ain’t, a solid sorrel registered Paint gelding owned by Mark Warrack, Hendrickson’s longtime assistant wrangler. In addition to the veteran movie riders and stunt horses, Civil War reenactors and their horses were hired for the battle scenes. Filmmakers commonly use reenactors in historical movies, as they provide authentic knowledge and have their own period wardrobes—for themselves as well as their horses.

  The Hoofbeats Go On

  Thirteen years after Dances with Wolves, Kevin Costner directed another critically
acclaimed Western, Open Range (2003). Starring Costner, Robert Duvall, and Diego Luna, Open Range follows two cattlemen, pushing a herd westward in the 1880s, who encounter opposition from a land baron.

  In Open Range, horses are relegated to typical supporting roles, mostly as vehicles for driving and rounding up cattle and as mounts in gunfights. They also pull wagons and provide colorful atmosphere just milling around in the background of dialogue scenes.

  Costner, Duvall, and Luna rode the same horses throughout the film. Although Rusty Hendrickson did not work on the film, he provided Costner with his mount. The star called his buddy Hendrickson and asked if he could find a horse like Baby, the horse Costner had ridden in Wyatt Earp. Hendrickson suggested he just ride Baby, by then in his early teens but still in great shape. Hendrickson shipped Baby from his Montana ranch to the Canadian location, and Costner was happily reunited with his former costar. Duvall and Luna rode two other veteran movie mounts, Apache and Soldier.

  The horse work in Open Range was carefully monitored by the AHA, and trained stunt horses were used throughout the film. In one scene, a horse appears to be struggling to get up after being shot. The horse, named Red, was a trained “lay down” horse. After Red was laid gently down on softened ground, he was cued to get up, then cued to lie back down so he would appear to be struggling.