In celebration of National Day of the Horse, we add to our existing store of equine related posts with this little gallery of top eight horse stars of the days of silents, serials, and kid oriented TV westerns, from the teens through the 1950s. Most of these creatures were trained to do tricks on command, and participated at live promotional events in addition to their on-camera duties. Most of them had their own fan bases and their own lines of merchandise (toys, comic books, gear with their names on it). Kids wrote fan letters to them! Here are the top 8:
Fritz
Fritz was the first horse to receive onscreen billing. He was the mount of west star William S. Hart in the nineteen-teens.
Tony
Tony was Tom Mix’s hooved co-star from 1922 to 1932. He was such a favorite with audiences that three of Mix’s films had Tony’s name in the title.
Rex
Rex was the first to be billed a “Wonder Horse” per se, and he was truly extraordinary — he starred in his own films! There are indeed some movies Rex appeared in where he is the only star of note. And since he was literally a wild horse and somewhat temperamental, many human actors chose not to appear with him.
Tarzan
Ken Maynard rode Tarzan in pictures from 1925 through 1940. Since there was another character in serials by that name (a certain jungle consort of apes) it must have caused some confusion in theatres.
Champion
Champion was the mount of singing cowboy Gene Autry.
Trigger
Roy Rogers’ four legged friend Trigger is easily the most famous wonder horse of all, I should think, due to his presence on Rogers TV show and the fact that he lived until 1965. After that, Rogers had Trigger stuffed, mounted, and exhibited. I hope you don’t find that news too…triggering.
Silver
Silver differs from other horses on this list in that he was actually a fictional character. Various horses played him in Lone Ranger films and on the tv show in the ’50s, but of course they all bore that name in public appearances.
Topper
Topper was the horse of Hopalong Cassidy, which is not to say that Hopper was the horse of Topalong Cassidy, or that Copper is the Torse of of Copalong Tassidy. Time to get off my hobby horse now.
Believe it or not there were around another two dozen of these movie Wonder Horses attached to lesser remembered western stars in the days of serials (1930s and ’40s). I’d list them all here, but I don’t want to be accused of beating a dead h—–
For more horse related posts go here.