HORSES STAR

Evening Star, Issue 23657, 17 August 1940, Page 5

HORSES STAR

Down through the screen history of Hollywood the noble animal which furnishes the sport of kings continues to reign and neigh. Records reveal that one of the first “ moving ” pictures ever made were those of a trotting horse made at Palo Alto, California, in 1887, by a genius named Edward Muybridge. Actually, Muybridge’s pictures were a series of stills, taken by box cameras lined up in a row. As the horse passed in front of each in succession, its feet tripped a string which controlled a shutter*. Muybridge took' this strip of pictures at the instance of Leland Stanford, who wished to prove that during the sequence of its stride, a horse at times has all four feet off the ground. He was right. Almost from that day on, the horse has been a prime subject of cinematic drama. The Klansmen rode D. W. Griffiths to everlasting directional fame in ‘ The Birth of a Nation.’ Herds and herds of horses carrying regiments

of cowboys and United States cavalrymen blasted uncountable Indians from the backs of galloping steeds. Most famed of those early motion picture horses was the piebald pinto Fritz, which William S. Hart rode through dozens of rip-roaring film adventures to become one of the greatest stars of the screen. Old Fritz died just a year or two ago in peaceful . old age at Bill. Hart’s Newhall ranch. Another animal of early screen fame was Tom Mix’s western pony, Tony, a noble beast of real intelligence. Then there "was Rex, the wild horse; Ghost, that Gary Cooper rode when he was still in chaps;'.Smoky, the horse that Dick ’Foran forked during his cowboy days—famous all.

Well it’s ‘ Hi, ho, Silver!” and a newcomer enters the horsey cinema scene, this time an animal unique among them all. Elmer Gantry is his name. Elmer is blind, 15 years old, and, of all things, a thoroughly able jumper. Gantry is now being featured in Warner Bros.’ unusual racing picture, ‘Pride of the Bluegrass,’ carrying on his sturdy bay back such human players

as little Edith Fellowes, James M‘Callion, Frankie Burke, and others. Gantry is owned by Miss Eleanor Getzendaner, of Des Plaines, Illinois, U.S.A., who has had him 12 years. She brained tho horse, after his blindness came, to have confidence in a rider which makes him clear a 6£t hurdle in perfect stride —and he enjoys being just as good a horse as those fine movie steeds that have gone before him.