Hollywood Horse

Neil Krenzel with McCoyska at Rancho Tierra de Oro.

Local Rancher Recalls Horse
Before It Became a Star

by Jim Evans

Neil Krenzel didn’t think his horse was anything special. Not that he wasn’t a good horse — he was — but Krenzel certainly didn’t expect that the 5-year-old Arabian stallion he sold in 1990 would end up in Hollywood.

Krenzel and his family have raised Arabians for many years at Rancho Tierra de Oro in Ramona, and "RT Encounter," aka "Count," was not especially conspicuous among their other horses. Sired by a stallion owned by Carolyn Hunter, a local breeder, and saddle-trained by local trainer Susan Strong, he seemed to be a solid but rather average horse.

"He was strong-willed," recalled Krenzel, "but, then, so are most Arabians."

Imagine Krenzel’s surprise when his former horse appeared in the popular Disney movie "Wild Hearts Can’t Be Broken" in 1991. Directed by Steve Miner and starring veteran actor and Academy Award winner Cliff Robertson with Gabrielle Anwar and Michael Schoeffling, the movie depicted the true-life story of runaway orphan Sonora Webster, who joined a traveling stunt show to become a diving horse girl during the Depression.

Although geared to a younger audience, the movie grossed more than $7 million — a respectable sum for a movie of this kind and of this era — and received rave reviews. It was nominated for the 1991 Annual Fennecu Award in the Animal Handling/Wrangling category and even received a favorable "age group" rating from film critic Roger Ebert.

Count was one of six horses chosen for the movie, and four were selected to dive — including Count. The real Sonora’s horses actually dove from a height of 40 feet, but the horses in the film never dove more than 10 feet – the maximum allowed under the American Humane Association Guidelines. In fact, the AHA was present for all of the training and on the set for the entire filming whenever the horses were in action. (American Humane Association, www.ahafilm.info).

Only horses that liked the water were chosen, and training was conducted by Corky Randall, a Hollywood wrangler known for being particularly cautious in handling his equine charges. Krenzel doesn’t remember Count being particularly fond of water, but he must have had a latent talent for swimming, because he and the other horses seemed to enjoy what they were doing.

In fact, the water tank used to depict the diving in the movie had to be blocked off when the crew was not filming because the horses would run and jump into the tank on their own when they were not training.

"Count also appeared in the more recent movie ‘The Horse Whisperer’ starring Robert Redford," Krenzel said. "I recognized him right away."

Krenzel himself was a late-comer to raising horses.

"I didn’t even start riding until 1970," he said. "My wife is the real equestrian in the family, but she got me started, and the whole family has been involved in horses ever since. It was such a thrill for all of us to see one of our horses make the big time."

Both films are out on video, so readers can see the big gray stallion from Ramona that became a — what do you call a horse that appears in a feature film anyway? A movie star? A leading horse (as opposed to leading man)?
A character actor?

Count probably just knows he is just a horse and is probably just taking this Hollywood stuff in...stride?