Spanish Horses Star In "Westerns"

Press, Volume CIV, Issue 30880, 13 October 1965, Page 14

Spanish Horses Star In "Westerns"

(N.Z P.A.-Reuter) MADRID. High class horses are much in demand in Spain at present—by the flourishing film industry. The first man to get the idea, some 20 years ago, to deck out an elegant equine star to strut and fret his hour upon the set of a celluloid world was Senor Augustin Medina. Since then his Madrid stable has grown in proportion to the demands of the cinema in Spain. He now has some 70 horses, 50 donkeys and 20 mules. Most of the boom in filmmaking in Spain has been in the last 10 years. Much of it is due to the practice of making Westerns in Spain. This practice is so widespread that one newspaper claimed recently that 70 to 75 per cent of the world’s Westerns are filmed here. Stardom

Horses, of course, are even more important than a fast gun, and almost as important as a pretty girl, in any West-

ern worthy of its spurs. So Senor Medina's “players” have zoomed to stardom.

Directors call upon the local population to supply low cost “extras” to portray cavalry troopers into a charge or redskin warriors on their descent on an unfortunate covered waggon train. They call on Senor Medina for horses, such as four-year-old Apache, the kind the Indian chief always rides. Or pure-white Zapatero, whom Anthony Quinn rode in “Lawrence of Arabia.”

Westerns, though important, are not by any means the only roles for which Senor Medina’s talent pool is suited. Zapatero, in addition to his role in “Lawrence of Arabia,” very nearly became El Cid’s mount. But he lost to two other white horses belonging to Senor Medina, called Pearl and Diamond. Pearl and Diamond were used because El Cid called for paired white horses, and Zapatero has no twin. Pearl and Diamond were brothers, 24 and 28 years old, and had been in Senor Medina’s stable for 19 years. They had played in more than

120 pictures before they both died last year, within seven days of each other. The basic staff of Senor Medina’s stable consists of 10 experts in the handling of horses.

As for the 50 donkeys, they are always in demand as a means of transport in a country like Spain. And one of them at least had a star part —the one who played Sancho Panza’s mount in “D«n Quixote.”