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| 27.
“He was Quite a Horseman” Continued An interview with surviving friends of Frank Hopkins EDITH: Walt’s father (Tom Pyle) was on the Rockefeller Estate, and me and Walt were running a horse stables on the D. Stillman Estate that was connected— WALT: —to all the riding trails, all the Rockefeller Estate trails— EDITH: Right. Pocantico Farms. We’re still Pocantico Farms.
EDITH: Ned didn’t care for her much. The wife. She was a good many years younger than Frank. But he adored Frank. The sun rose and set on Frank to Ned. JF: Why didn’t he care for Gert? EDITH: He said that she wanted to write a book about Frank and make lots of money. Ned thought she was trying to make money off of him. She had plans to make lots of money on a book. JF: Wow. Okay. Based on my studies of the materials found at the University of Wyoming, I suspected the same. I said this to the History Channel, but I don’t know if its in there. I never saw the program. WALT: Frank would come up and he’d go out and ride the trails. A hundred miles of riding trails. The one who he spent the most time with was my father. My father would sometimes take him out in the car. He had the only car allowed out on the trails and they’d go for drives and talk. That’s when he wasn’t on horse. See, you couldn’t go on those trails unless you were on horse or on foot, but my father had the only car that was allowed. JF: Can I ask about the horses on your place again? Were you breeding thoroughbreds at that point? EDITH: No, not yet. We just had riding horses. We were giving lessons, we had boarders. We had a nice horse from the Remount Service. His name was Royal, great trail horse. He had the Remount tattoo. JF: What about these horses from the Athabascan Territory? They came down on a train, a wild herd. Did they stay at your place? WALT: Yes. Three of them were owned by Dr. James Stillman. JF: I’m fascinated by these Athabascans. I see that Frank was, too. So lets get back to Frank. Did his reputation precede him? EDITH: Everyone knew who he was. WALT: Everyone knew about the Texas to Vermont race (see "1800-mile Trail Ride—Texas to Vermont"). The old timers who were alive back then all knew of it. We all did. JF: Like your father. WALT: Yes. EDITH: So do these people…the ones who are saying that Frank didn’t do the distance races, why are they saying this? JF: Lack of documentation for one. The races weren’t written about in the papers. WALT: Well, they wouldn’t be. JF: Right. We’re not talking about the Kentucky Derby. And the SPCA… EDITH: That’s right… JF: They didn’t approve of 1500 mile races (see "America's Great Distance Horseman"). Frank admits in some writings that the extreme races over 1,000 miles had to “be done on the QT.” Jack Schaefer was hard pressed to find record of the 1908 Evanston-Denver race which was the most organized distance race in America and well-sponsored. But there’s more. There are writings from the box found in Wyoming that aren’t congruent with other writings in the same collection. There’s a shift from the voice of a seasoned cowboy and preservationist to that of a kind of shallow easterner who tries to say that Crazy Horse and Chief Joseph were brothers and that Buffalo Bill was seven feet tall. In my opinion—and in the opinion of others like Mac Brislawn who has also studied the materials—Gert took years of Frank’s writings and combined them with her efforts to compose a best seller after his death. EDITH: Right. That’s what Ned was afraid of. WALT: Oh, he’d get hopping mad. He knew Frank didn’t belong in Long Island and he wanted to get out. EDITH: He didn’t. He didn’t belong there. JF: But the detractors have also built their case on their claims that Frank Hopkins was not from out west, was not part Indian, and—stay calm—that there’s not even a documented photo of him on a horse. EDITH: Well, we’ve got them there. (Laughter). I took photos myself of Frank on Blue Bird around the same time. It was Frank’s birthday. Ned took this one. WALT: It wasn’t 1951 by the way. Like it says there. It was ’48 or ’49. EDITH: Yes. Because we had Blue Bird out of there by then, we were out of there. JF: An article by Sara Solovitch in Outside Magazine states that there is no evidence that he could even ride well. Can you set the record straight? You are horse people and you’ve been around racing champions, distance riders, and trained equestrians for…seventy years. How did he ride? WALT: He mounted a horse like—he was way up in years—but he mounted a horse smoother than all the young riders around, went up like— EDITH: Oh, yes, he went right up like he was a young kid. He rode Blue Bird. WALT: We never put anyone on Blue Bird. Too much horse. JF: I bet he picked her out. She had mustang in her. (Laughter) EDITH: He seemed to be quite a preservationist for those mustangs. WALT: I was amazed. He took off on her and it was like the two had been riding together all their lives. What he could do with that horse. He rode all around the courtyard and then out on the trails. EDITH: He was quite a horseman. JF: Well, that’s evident in his writings on horsemanship and his judge’s reports of the 100-miler in Vermont. Dr. Deb Bennett, author and director of the Equine Studies Institute reviewed his articles and the stories of his races and said “I believe in Frank Hopkins because he speaks to me as only a horseman can.” WALT: He knew his way around horses. JF: How would you rate him as a horseman? WALT: Excellent. JF: There are claims, some of them backed by this group’s historians, that he wasn’t from Wyoming, that he might have never left the east coast. (Laughter) WALT: You had to know him. JF: How did you know that he was from out west? I mean… WALT: Everything about him. His way of talking, his attitude. There was no reason at all to think that he wasn’t. EDITH: There was never any reason to question it. JF: You’ve been around, Walt. You served with the 9th Infantry in the War, you were active in state legislature, agricultural programs on a national level, and you worked security. I don’t think it’d be too easy to dupe you. WALT: No. JF: And your father. Fifty years in security for the Rockefeller’s, met people from around the world. He had to be a good judge of character—and charlatans. He’d know if his friend Frank was selling him a bill of goods, wouldn’t he? WALT: You bet he would. JF: You never found Hopkins to be a braggart or boastful in any— WALT: Oh, no, no… EDITH: Nope. JF: So what about him being half-Indian? I first learned of him on the Pine Ridge Indian Reservation. I know Indian elders from both the Lakota and Blackfeet Nations who know of him and often speak of him in the same breath when speaking of the endurance ability of old-time Indian horses (see "The Legend of Hidalgo" as told by Blackfoot elder Runs-with-the-buffalo). EDITH: He sure had that way around horses. He taught us how to use Indian worm medicine. JF: What was that? EDITH: Poplar bark. WALT: The poplar tree bark. He took off with Dad and they went up into the woods. They came back with poplar bark and he showed us how to grind it and use it. JF: Did it work? WALT: Seemed to. EDITH: That was how they clicked, Walt’s father and Frank. JF: How do you mean? WALT: My father was game keeper. He knew the woods. He knew the plants and trees. When people came to go on the trails he could tell them what every plant and leaf was. JF: So your father was a naturalist? WALT: I guess that’s what they’d call him today. JF: And Frank was a kindred spirit. EDITH: That’s how they clicked together. They respected each other. JF: Well, I thank you for these rare photos, and for your time. EDITH: Well, thank you. It was great to hear Frank’s name on the news and go back in time sixty years. WALT: Come on. We’ll show you the horses. <------ Begin Interview COMING SOON: New Frank Hopkins materials located in Texas... |
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this site sponsored by The Horse of the Americas Registry, & IRAM - the Institute of Range and the American Mustang email:info@frankhopkins.com |
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