Cari Swanson

Silver and The Lone Ranger

I am fascinated with the history of horses in films and have been researching the horses used in The Lone Ranger.  Recently I came across the following from a beautiful book Hollywood Hoofbeats by Petrine Mitchem.

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.  The original Silver, formerly White Cloud, was a Tennessee Walker standing 17 hands tall.  The twelve year old even-tempered Silver was a natural picture horse.

A second Silver was purchased as a four-year-old in 1949.  He was half Arabian and half Saddlebred.  He was extremely high strung and required the magic touch of Glenn Randall, Sr. who trained the horse until 1952.  Silver number two was  used to double the original in the action scenes, often performing the signature Randall famous near vertical rear.

Tuff Performs at Quarterfest

We just returned from a successful weekend in Nashville, TN where the AQHA hosted the first of many Quarterfest Events honoring the Quarter Horse from many aspects of the horse world.  Reining, roping, mounted shooters, trail classes and amazing performances each evening kept us all busy each day.  Tuff  (from the films Flicka, Van Helsing, Appaloosa) and Cache (Viggo’s mount in Appaloosa) performed each evening in a liberty act , amazing the audience with a display of control of each horse with Rex using only body movements and the whips to guide his horses.

Beechnut, Equine Actor from City Slickers (1981-2008)

Beechnut, the beloved horse of Billy Crystal died at the age of 27.  “Beechnut was in many ways my best friend, he was incredibly human in his instincts.” says Billy.

Billy bought Beechnut after he met him on the set of “City Slickers”.  Many may remember when Billy rode Beechnut on stage while hosting the 1991 Oscars.

When you have a problem with your horse(s), who are you going to call?

The film industry—aka Hollywood—is the home of the great, and sometimes not so great, story tellers of our times. Every day on the set represents a lot of money spent in an effort to capture some movie magic.

For that reason, working with animals on films is a risky, tricky, and increasingly high stakes business. Directors and producers don’t need to mess around with animals who can’t do their job. They have too much at stake. Rex Peterson has become the gold standard when it comes to horses in film. When Julia Roberts was portrayed galloping through the woods away from one of her weddings in “Runaway Bride,” she rode one of Rex’s horses (that is actually Julia on the horse). See Cari’s blog for many other examples of Rex’s film work, including of course the filming of “Hidalgo” with our own RJ, the star horse of that film.

Have you ever had a problem with your horse that you didn’t know how to handle? If you’ve ever had a horse we know the answer to that question and we are here with many new solutions—most of which are in fact very old and are passed down from generations that preceded ours.

This week and weekend in Massachusetts you will have the opportunity to meet the legendary Rex Peterson in the flesh at the Equine Affaire. Not only that, Swanson Peterson Productions is releasing a new series of training videos available on DVD. More details on that this week.

We look forward to seeing you at the Equine Affaire.

Jim Breitinger is an Arizona-based writer.