This article first appeared in the March 2021 digital edition of Equestrian Life. To see what’s in the current issue, click here.
The action-packed desert scenes and Viggo’s obvious talent for riding made Hidalgo a hit.
Viggo Mortensen saves the day!
By Suzy Jarratt
With its action-packed desert race scenes, an upstart mustang up against Arabian thoroughbreds – and an actor who can actually ride – Hidalgo earns its place among horse movie epics.
Never let it be said that actor Viggo Mortensen is a one-trick pony. An author, musician, poet and photographer as well as acclaimed actor, he can speak several languages and, in 2002, formed Perceval Press which published The Horse is Good, his pictorial homage to the creatures he loves.
Danish American Viggo is a fierce advocate for horse welfare, most notably wild mustangs and, as moviegoers would know, he can really ride, often taking home the horses at the completion of filming. “I bought the one in Lord of the Rings ’cause I’d developed a really good friendship with him,” says Viggo. “His name was Uraeus, a Dutch warmblood who played Brego in the film.” This top-level dressage horse, and sire of successful sporting horses, was in semi-retirement before NZ owner and trainer, the late Lockie Richards, agreed to lease him to the LotR production.
“And then there was Kenny – I rode him at the beginning of The Two Towers; he was very easy and relaxed and I just wanted Uraeus to have a buddy.” (The horses were kept on a veterinarian’s property in New Zealand and would receive regular visits from their famous owner).
After playing Aragorn in the Tolkien trilogy, Viggo made Hidalgo in 2004, loosely based on the legend of American endurance rider, Frank T. Hopkins, who takes his paint horse, Hidalgo (“nobleman” in Spanish), to run the famed (if not mythical) 3,000-mile Ocean of Fire race across the deserts of the Arabian Peninsula for a $100,000 purse – against Bedouins on purebred Arabians. He wins… of course…
Read the full article here in the March 2021 issue of Equestrian Life!
