Audie L. Murphy Memorial Website Message Boards

Hi All,
I very vividly remember when my daughter was 6 or 7, we spent a Saturday at a friend's ranch
house in Rio Linda, north of Sacramento, where they owned several horses and they invited my
daughter and myself to go horseback riding. Their Daughter, and My Daughter were same age,
and had become friends, anyway, this one Saturday, Stacey was on a small horse, and the horse
threw her, Scared the living Bejesus out of me!!, Not Stace, she got up, dusted herself off and
climbed right back on the horse again... That was the day I found out that was NOT the first time
my daughter had been thrown from a horse... She had guts!!! Also to this day, my daughter still
has lots of pets, dog, cats, fish, and her two daughters also have pets, so I think if you are
inclined towards animal pets, you will always have them throughout your life. I honestly think if
my daughter could afford it, and had the room for it, she would also own a horse. Shirley Jean.

I remember Ben Cooper at Audie Days telling about when Audie first began riding horses in Hollywood how painful it was for him because of his hip injury. He would fall off the horse but got right back up on it and just kept doing it until he learned to ride as well as he did. He said he never complained or made excuses because of his hip; he just worked at it until he did it well.

I think this is the way Audie approached anything he tried, just kept doing it until he did it well. We all know there was not much he couldn't do if he wanted to. I think that's a great characteristic to have in your life.

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Betty

About the horse dumping Audie...horses can be spooked by anything, any...thing,
Even a steady, well trained, horse can get the vapors over a fly, on occassion, for instance.
Eva this thread is amazing, I know a lot of these movies frame for frame and never noticed the horses from movie to movie. Thank you for such great info and screen shots! You rock!

Oh yeah-by the by, and when I first started riding, back in the Middle Ages, I remember being eold you are not a real rider until you have hit the dirt 7 times.

Or ten, or twenty, or even fifty; depending on who is talking.

Welcome aboard Addie; sure nice to have you.

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Eva Danø

Thank you Eva! I am trying to be more involved. I usually just look around when I am here, but I was so impressed by your, Audie's Horses, research and info, i had to speak up. Western always seems more wild to me, do you risk many more toss offs, etc than with English? I never rode Western, only English.
Do not be mean to me about that, I am a New Yorker, it is amazing I am a rider at all. B)

Hey, I grew up in Denmark, where NOBODY rides Western. What we called a "saddle" at the pony stable was really just a bareback pad; no stirrups, and mostly we just rode bareback.

When you ride English, you basically sit ON TOP of the saddle. A hunt seat saddle is a bit more secure than a saddle seat saddle, because of the knee rolls, but you are STILL on top. When you sit a Western saddle, you have a high fork and a saddle horn in front (good for "grabbing leather" when needed) and a much higher cantle in the back, so you really sit IN the saddle. Having grown up with either bareback or at the most a hunt style English saddle, I find the western saddle MUCH more secure, and also much more comfortable for those all day long treks, maybe up and down steep hills. I HAVE an English saddle, but I rarely used it. I'd either ride bareback with just a blanket thrown over Fortune's back and a leadrope around her neck, or else in the Western saddle.

Another consideration is that a well fitting Western saddle is much more SECURE on the horse's back. Would you ever try riding in an English saddle with NO GIRTH? I remember one time when I was riding in the arena at Parnell Park in Whittier (Calif). Someone remarked that my cinch (Western for girth) looked a bit loose. What I did instead of tightening it up was to remove both cinches completely; hand them to the person who had made the comment, climbed up using the fence, and ran the barrels with Fortune at an almost dead run. I KNEW the saddle would stay in place as long as I didn't lose my balance, even negotiating the sharp turns of the barrel race course and the skid stop at the end

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Eva Danø

People who learn to ride in a Western saddle usually find it much harder to sit an English saddle than the other way around because you can get away with being a little more sloppy in a Western saddle. It's interesting watching old Westerns with guys who can't ride playing cavalry officers and they give them Western saddles to ride rather than authentic cavalry saddles which are basically English saddles.

Audie Murphy being the exception of course! I just watched 40 Guns to Apache Pass and was thrilled to see him in an authentic McClellan and riding just as well as in his usual Western tack.

My goodness, I feel like a bad fan, I never noticed this much detail about Audie Murphy's horses and saddles in his movies! I have only seen, 40 guns..., a million times, but i gave to watch it again to see what you are talking about!
I love this thread!

My goodness, I feel like a bad fan, I never noticed this much detail about Audie Murphy's horses and saddles in his movies! I have only seen, 40 guns..., a million times, but i gave to watch it again to see what you are talking about!
I love this thread!

Jo, I don't know if you have access to Whispering Smith where you're at, but check out the stills from "Swift Justice," where the story has Audie Murphy riding Joe Queen in a race, using modern (well, 1960s) racing tack.

http://www.audiemurphy.com/tvshow_epi19_photo22.htm
Start here, and just keep clicking next.

It is cool that for part of the race, at least, it really is Audie Murphy riding. I wonder if he had to fight the protective powers that be, to do the race in the episode.

I watched the episode, you are talking about, last night and was so surprised by that tiny bit of riding tack. So that is 1960s racing tack? I am learning so much in this thread!

addie

I'm guessing he did have to do some arm-twisting to get away with it; the studios don't seem to like putting the expensive actor in the dangerous stuff. It's nice when he can get away with it-I remember watching Bullet for a Badman, and wondering why Jim Shepherd or whoever was doubling Murphy in that fight scene with Alan Hale Jr. I was like, "Please! This doesn't look that hard...did Murph have the flu, or was he just trying to help the stunt guy pay his bills?"

The saddle and gear in Swift Justice look pretty much like what I see when I turn on the Kentucky Derby each year, so I assume it's racing tack. I just added the caveat about the 1960s in case there were some changed details I hadn't noticed.

Wow thank you Christie! Whispering Smith isn't available here in NZ but I went on YouTube and found that episode so watched it through. It was great! My sisters were ecstatic as we have been wanting to see Joe Queen on film for a long time.

It says a lot for Murphy's horsemanship that he rode a former racehorse in racing tack running with other horses on camera without any apparent difficulty. I've ridden ex-racehorses and if something reminds them of their running days they can turn into completely different horses.

Awesome! I'm glad you ladies got a chance to see Joe Queen in action. Eva did a break down of which horse Murphy rides in which Whispering Smith episode, here: viewtopic.php?f=1&t=641&hilit=joe+queen&start=15

It looks like Joe's other episodes are: The Blind Gun, Stake-out, Safety Valve, Three for One, The Hemp Reeger Case, This Mortal Coil, Double Edge, The Jodie Tyler Story, The Idol, String of Circumstances, and Hired to Die.

I'm pretty sure some of those are on youtube too. After "Swift Justice," the best showcase for Joe Queen is probably "This Mortal Coil," where Smith needs to demonstrate that with a fast enough horse the murderer could get from Point A to Point B in time to kill someone, and naturally he uses Joe Queen to prove his point. Joe doesn't have much screentime in "Safety-Valve," but I think he is wearing a McClellan saddle there, for what it's worth.

I think Murphy liked playing jockey-Del Mar had a novelty race where owners and trainers could ride their own horses, and he won it two years running, the first time on Apache Agent.

Late last night my Aunty Helen became the happy owner of yet another foal, a chestnut filly who she named after her favorite character on on of her favorite movies: Tumbleweed!