XXXSince the official launch of Frankhopkins.com in 2003, nearly 10,000 emails have streamed into this site. That’s quite a number considering that very few people today ever heard of the man prior to the release of “Hidalgo.”
XXXE-mails from as far away as Brazil and Germany have expressed an interest in Frank T. Hopkins and/or Spanish Mustangs; many were simply fan letters—some from fans of the movie, some from new fans of Hopkins; a great many folks wanted to learn more about Frank and his life. But we never expected to hear from people who would help us learn more about him—people who knew Mr. Hopkins personally and who were surprised to hear his name in the media again after more than half a century.
XXXThe first to contact us were Mr. and Mrs. Walter Pyle, friends of Frank Hopkins’ from sixty years back; they’d been surprised to hear a familiar name on a local CBS news broadcast about “Hidalgo.” We were eager to travel and meet this salt-of-the-earth couple, respected livestock breeders who knew Frank in the 1940’s when they ran a riding stable at Pocantico Hills, NY. According to the Pyle’s, Frank was often a special guest at the adjacent Rockefeller Estate where both Walt and Edith had worked in security at various times. During these visits, the Pyle’s say, Hopkins rode Athabascan mustangs that few could get a saddle near, floated the teeth of horses deemed “untouchable,” and sometimes used his knowledge of Native American horse medicine to treat horses for worms.
XXXAll this while Frank was well into his 80’s.
XXXWalt’s father, Tom Pyle, was head of security for the Rockefeller’s for fifty years. He had known Frank for a long time, valuing him as a friend, horseman, and fellow naturalist (Hopkins, Walt says, endlessly impressed his father with his knowledge of medicinal plants). When Frank would visit the estate, his western saddle in the backseat of a 40’s auto, it became a special occasion. When asked what drew the old cowboy to the estate on Sundays, Walt Pyle smiles at the memory: “100 miles of bridle trails,” he says. It was where Old Frank could open up, and ride distance again. “And how,” Walt adds. “He was way up in years, but…I was amazed… what he could do with a horse.”
XXXEdith, now in her 80’s, had been a young distance rider herself, competing in 100-mile trail events five times. Hopkins’ name was renowned among her crowd and she took pride in knowing him. Today, she is still actively breeding race horses (she once owned Driving Drizzle when he won a dramatic victory at Rockingham Park). Her evaluation of the aging Hopkins’ equestrian skills: “He was quite a horseman. Oh, yes.”
XXXHearing from surviving friends of Frank Hopkins was an unexpected thrill, tempered only by the regret that we hadn’t heard from them earlier—before the movie, let alone the controversy that would surround its veracity.
XXXThat controversy, of course, was the impassioned crusade that came to be promoted as “the Hopkins Hoax.” This campaign against Frank was started by husband and wife founders of an international equestrian guild. The attacks appeared online while “Hidalgo” was still filming in the middle of the desert—a total surprise to all involved with the production. The would-be debunkers—who had never heard of Hopkins before the announcement of the movie-- began denouncing him as a fraud, a self-promoting charlatan, and “ghoul.” They, as many of you will recall, accused the filmmakers of making a propaganda piece as a metaphor for the U.S. invasion of Iraq. A cowboy in the desert was their repeated protest (they obviously never researched my politics or Viggo’s more public ones). In an effort to debunk the movie, they would cite a lack of documentation for Hopkins’ rides. This observation came as no bombshell: these rides were not the Kentucky Derby, but rather underground, extreme distance contests—rarely, if ever, reported on or advertised.
XXXFredie Steve Harris, writing in Horseman Magazine in 1977 states that "Dead race horses laying in a ditch or on a track were just the thing to fire up America's fledgling humane societies. In fact, the Massachusetts Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals was founded in 1868 as the result of a 40-mile $1,000 trotting match. In this race, both horses, Ivanhoe and Empire State, were driven to death." Harris offers compelling evidence for why the extreme races Hopkins became known for would not be found in the sports pages of 1800's America:
XXX"Human officers began to monitor endurance racing along with cocking, ratting, baiting, and other disagreeable pastimes. They informed the public of abuses and berated public officials who ignored the problems, even offering rewards to anyone who could suggest methods of discouraging such racing."
XXXBut "no such rider was Frank Hopkins," writes Harris. "He was a model horseman. Hopkins may have been the best endurance rider of the late 19th century. If all endurance riders had been his equal, the humane societies would have had little work to do."
XXXHopkins was known as one of the rare riders who put his horses first, and had a reputation for preaching humane horsemanship. According to Dipper Brislawn, daughter of Spanish Mustang legend Robert Brislawn, Hopkins competed in these extreme events for one reason only: to prove the endurance ability of the Mustang and make a utilitarian case for the preservation of the breed.
XXXThe would-be debunkers stated that because reports of these rides cannot be located in old newspapers from the 1800’s, Hopkins must have made them up. But they didn’t stop at negative proof. For whatever reason, they wanted to “shred Hopkins,” (to use their own words). They stated--with exclamation marks-- that there was not even one validated photograph of the man on a horse, that his writings indicated that he knew nothing about horses, that he was a delusional con man who probably “never sat a horse in his life” and probably never left the east coast.
XXXOddly, they would make these statements while being in possession of Hopkins’ quite powerful essays on horsemanship that the detractors themselves discovered in a box in Wyoming while searching for a “smoking gun.”
XXXThis is not to say that they didn’t find suspect materials in that box; they found handwritten papers and manuscripts that told fantastic whoppers (we’ll get to that). Excited over the “smoking gun”, they would enlist the support of numerous historians, one who would go on record to state that “the only endurance Frank Hopkins ever did was with his pencil.”
XXXHow different the disposition of the media blitz might have been if Walt and Edith Pyle had been interviewed to tell the first-hand truth: that they knew Hopkins personally, knew about his long races, and watched him ride often—like on a Sunday in 1948, when he mounted a mustang that was “too much horse” for even the seasoned professionals around the stable; he rode like “they’d been riding together forever” and hit the trails that connected the Rockefeller and D. Stillman Estates, burning them up under saddle—“making younger riders look sick.”
XXXNot even one validated photograph of Hopkins on horseback?
XXXIt turns out that a photo of Hopkins in the saddle on this web site—called “unverified” by the Hopkins-haters—was taken by Edith Pyle herself. Not only did the Pyle’s identify the rider as their friend Frank, they also identified the horse he sat as that Athabascan Mustang few others could handle. They owned her in 1948 and her name was Blue Bird. They verified other photos of Hopkins in the saddle as well, and—digging through boxes in their front room--found some new ones of him during those Sundays on the estate.

This photo has been challenged by detractors, but Walt and Edith confirm that this is their friend Frank T. Hopkins, 86, up on Blue Bird, a horse owned by the Pyles. Edith took this photo on the trails connecting the D. Stillman and Rockefeller Estates in 1948.

XXXAnd that recruited historian who went on record to say that the only endurance Hopkins ever did was with his pencil?
XXXHe unknowingly lives less than an hour’s drive from Walt and Edith who could have challenged his statement if he ever left the microfilm for an afternoon and got his loafers muddy on a horse farm. In fairness to him and the couple gunning for Hopkins, Hollywood does have a bad record for historical accuracy and money does move the machine. But one should do more objective leg work before releasing such defamatory statements about a dead man. The “Guild” would also insist to the historians, the press, and the public that this web site you’re now visiting was no more than a crafty smoke-screen deception by me and Disney—shades of Enron, they said-- to conceal the fact that our movie hero was an unscrupulous con man. In fact, they issued an internet warning, we were all unscrupulous con men. Hidalgo-gate became their headline. And--as if it had some terrible relevance-- they published the financial details of my writing contract online (are screenwriters not supposed to get paid?) Enron they shouted. An American cowboy in the desert--how patriotic, they groused online, suggesting that this was the political agenda wrapped in a commercial agenda wrapped in an historical hoax.
XXXAll we had were 72 years of writings in horse history books, magazines, and newspapers, referencing Frank T. Hopkins as one of the greatest distance riders who ever saddled a horse. We had the recorded oral histories of western ranch families and Native Americans who grew up on tales of his rides, like the Blackfeet elder, Leo Pard, who recounts the Hidalgo story in his native tongue, the way his elders told him.
XXXBut we didn’t, at that time, have people who actually knew the guy.
XXXThey were busy training their horses, raising Jersey cows, and helping out the local 4-H Club—and God bless them. But if we did know of them then, magazines like Outside (“Liar, Liar, Chaps on Fire”) and newspapers like the L.A. Times (“A Long Trail of Lies”) would have heard from people who had known the shadow figure they were attempting to lynch. They would have heard, first-hand, of a quiet man who would often make long drives to come doctor intractable horses, or to serve as honorary judge of 100 mile events and coach young distance riders—but only if they asked for advice.
XXX Sara Solovitch, writing for Outside Magazine, and stating that “there is not even any evidence that Hopkins could ride well,” would have heard Walt Pyle describe what it was like to watch Frank handle a half-wild horse. She would have heard that his knowledge and advice to experienced distance horsemen so inspired them that they changed their saddle fit and strategies—to winning results. The critics might have then understood more fully why Albert W. Harris, 1930’s endurance champ, Arabian horse breeder, and author of the acclaimed book “Blood of the Arab,” dedicated that book to Frank Hopkins and wrote two chapters on him and his horse Hidalgo. More importantly, perhaps, they would have learned of the local consensus that Frank’s younger wife by 32 years, Gertrude, was planning to pen a book about her celebrated husband’s earlier days out west.
XXXThe people who knew Frank, young horsemen like Ned Wehrman, did not feel good about this exploitive ambition of Gertrude’s. As decent people, the Pyle’s prefer to say little more than that on the subject. Did she ever write that book about Frank, they ask me? Kind of, I told them. It was 17 years after Frank’s death, in the 1960’s, while living “day to day” on little money at 44-61, 23 Street in Long Island City, New York.
XXXThat’s when Gertrude Hopkins put pencil to paper.
XXX (We believe that these vast and rambling, handwritten manuscripts largely account for what has been described as Hopkins’ “tall tales” or hoax. They were composed by Gertrude who knew little about horses or the west, but knew that there was great interest in her late husband’s legendary reputation for extreme rides. The popular biographer, Robert Eastman, wrote her and indicated a publishing deal if she could provide enough material. Gertrude ammended accounts of his legendary rides, but she also penciled in some rollickers and monkeydoodle: like Buffalo Bill was 7 feet tall; like Geronimo was Sitting Bull’s brother; some material was hand-copied directly from books like Black Elk Speaks; other purple passages resemble a neophyte effort to write a Zane Grey western. These were the papers that the debunkers presented to historians as “the smoking gun” while allegedly ignoring Hopkins’ actual erudite writings on horsemanship as well as discovered photos. When we learned that this mystery box had been found by people who were proving to be oddly over-zealous in denouncing Hopkins, we hired researchers to access the materials and copy it all—otherwise these articles by Hopkins might never have seen the light of day.)
XXX Until now, we believed that finding Walt and Edith Pyle was a single shot of serendipity, a rare contact that allowed us to get a better picture of who Frank was. But then we began to receive more calls and e-mails. People were still out there who had known Frank T. Hopkins and were amused to be hearing his name again after six or seven decades.
XXXPeggy Conroy, a successful breeder of dressage horses who also holds credentials in the field of geology, emailed to say that her mother and her father were distance riders in the 1940’s and pals with Frank Hopkins. Her family’s evaluation: “Frank Hopkins was the ultimate in horsemanship.”
XXX“My father took his horse King Patch (grandson of Dan Patch) to the 100 mile ride a couple of times as well as some family friends on other horses. I rode it as a teenager and finished in the top 5 or 6 riding with Lana Dupont (her Mom owned Kelso).”
XXXHer father, Thomas, she states, came to “greatly admire” Frank after spending hours upon hours with him, discussing horsemanship, distance technique, and horse history. Her mother, now a retired school teacher who, even at 94 still gets to the barn every day, remembers Hopkins with equal admiration. Even Ms. Conroy’s grandfather, who raised and trained horses in the New York City market, knew of and admired Hopkins’ experience and ability. The generations of professional horseman in her family, she says, “greatly appreciated Frank’s sharing of his knowledge.”
XXXLike the Pyle’s, Ms. Conroy’s family also backs up Hopkins’ disputed claims that he was born near Laramie, Wyoming.
XXX“Frank spoke often of being amazed at how we easterners let all the water running down the hills escape! Out west they'd somehow capture it for future use.”
XXX“He was from out west—no doubt about it,” says Walt Pyle, who, as a World War II vet has met men from every corner of the country. “The way he talked, the way he carried himself, the particular way he was around horses, everything. You had to know him otherwise you really can’t judge.”
XXXEdith Pyle tells, with amusement, of Hopkins drying and grinding local poplar bark to treat her horses for worms. Unknown as a treatment on the east coast (except by the Mohawk who used it for intestinal worms), it was practiced by Native Americans who used aspen and cottonwood bark as horse medicine in the Dakotas. The poplar is the close eastern cousin to both of those western species. Hopkins apparently knew what he was doing, and with a knowledge not from Long Island.
XXXBut westerner or not, was he a teller of over-the-top adventure tales?
XXX“He was cut from the same cloth as Daddy,” Peggy Conroy jokes in a later email, adding that her father was Irish. “They both liked a good story.”
XXXBut could Hopkins have been the narcissistic, sociopath, con man that the debunkers insist he was? Ms. Conroy doesn’t accept that analysis. “ I don’t remember any sense that there was any great exaggeration on Frank’s part.”
XXXWhen Walt Pyle is told of the hoax claims, he smiles and shakes his head, failing to understand the accusations, but not much bothered by it. Edith points out that newspapers did not cover old-time, extreme distance races of the sort Frank made his name on. To gain notoriety in that field was by oral tradition among horsemen—and some of the world’s most respected horsemen, like Albert Harris and Dr. Ruy D’andrade validated, even revered, Hopkins.
XXXWalt also points out that his father was the head of security for the Rockefeller’s for fifty years. He knew how to read people, he had to, before letting them frequent the high-security estate. He was close with Frank; when Hopkins wasn’t riding the bridle trails on horses, he drove those same trails in Tom’s car, the security chief and the old-time horseman . Walt himself was no easy mark; he served with the 9th Infantry Division and was a former state representative. “Frank was the real thing,” he says. “Everyone involved with horses knew who he was and what he could do.”
XXXThen why the attack on a man’s character by people who never knew him, never even heard of him until they learned that a big-budget Hollywood movie was being produced?
XXX“I can’t imagine why anyone would want to smear such a person like Frank,” Peggy Conroy writes, “other than the pettiness of the kind we see in today’s leaders in DC.”
XXXAnuj Desai, a journalist for Slate.Com , admits in a March 2004 article about the alleged hoax, that the debunkers’ “rhetoric is a bit overblown—and it's worth asking why they are so intent on debunking the Hopkins legend.”
XXXLt. Col. William Zimmerman, 96, of Amarillo, Texas, wrote in with that very question. The former Signal Corps Meteorologist e-mailed to say that the Frank Hopkins in the movie “Hidalgo,” was the same Frank Hopkins who lived a few houses away from him in Forest Hills, NY, in 1920 when the Lt. Col. was a young boy. “He was a famous horseman, retired in the east,” Lt. Col. Zimmerman, writes. “I was the envy of the boys in school (Public School #3) because Frank’s daughter, who was in my class, invited me to her birthday party. The boys knew that I might get to meet Frank Hopkins—the great horse rider.”
XXXLt. Col. Zimmerman remembers that Hopkins was somehow involved with “movie pictures” that were being filmed often in that area by the New York Film Company, and that Teddy Roosevelt once spent a few days there participating in a film of some kind. (We sent Lt. Col. Zimmerman’s emails to a local newspaper reporter in Forest Hills, NY, and he has confirmed every address and building that Col. Zimmerman references from that period; that newspaper is currently working with him on an unrelated historical article about the old neighborhood and this new discovery of the Hopkins house).
XXXThe “movie picture” piece is somewhat interesting when we consider Hopkins’ (or Gertrude’s) claims that Frank had an association with western screen idol William S. Hart, and that he had lent technical assistance to one or more of Hart’s films. Hopkins also claims that, at an earlier time, when both he and Hart lived in Connecticut, he leased three of his own horses to the cowboy star. This would have been close to the time that documented materials place Hopkins with horses in the Ringling Bros. Circus, a time when Ringling Bros. featured a Wild West Show. In his description of Hart’s home life, Hopkins mentions a little-known nickname for Hart’s sister and states that she “kept house” for the movie star. When we checked the nickname and odd housekeeping detail with the Hart museum, they confirmed that the esoteric details were accurate.
XXXMeanwhile, more intriguing e-mails continue to come in.
XXXThe widow of Ned Wehrman, the young horseman that Hopkins once mentored in distance riding will hopefully be meeting with us soon. She recently gifted her late husband’s equestrian library to the Conroy’s who she remains in contact with. Ned is remembered as being especially critical of Gertrude’s plans to write a posthumous book about her well-liked husband, so the interview might provide more insight on the source of certain “tall tales.”
XXXOther e-mails wonder about distant blood relationship to Hopkins, some claiming Native American ancestry (Hopkins is a common Native American surname). One Native American family living in Canada has written repeatedly as their interest in tracing their connection to Hopkins grows. A few e-mails express rage at the site, such as the one that says “I can’t believe you’re still pushing this crap! Don’t you know that it’s been proven that this sicko was never near a horse!” But mostly, the letters weigh in to say that Frank Hopkins’ essays are an inspiration and way ahead of their time. Many horse people, like Dr. Deb Bennett of the Equine Studies Institute, find his “voice” authentic and inspired.
XXX“His writings speak to me in the way that only a fellow horseman can,” Dr. Bennett said in a recent interview. “That’s why I believe him.”
XXXThe Pyle’s and the Conroy’s say they do not need to read those writings to be convinced. They had a trailside seat.
XXXWhoever Frank Hopkins was—whether or not he made some spectacular long rides in underground competitions; whether or not he or Gert padded a more modest history with purple prose-- one thing is now incontrovertible fact, supported by living witnesses:
XXXThe man was acknowledged and respected as “the ultimate in horsemanship”, a skilled trainer who used natural techniques long before they became trendy, and a passionate and eloquent spokesman for the preservation of an endangered breed. He was extremely knowledgeable about Native American horsemanship and Native horse medicine. He was an inspiration to later preservationists like Robert Brislawn and Gilbert Jones, and he remains an inspiration to the new wave of preservationists. He was also--according to everyone who has come forward to say they knew him—a very decent and quiet man.
XXXContrary to the image promoted by these recent detractors, he never tried to sell his “stories” to any publications or attempt to make money off of them in any way. When he did contribute essays to publications that addressed his past rides, it was always with the aim of promoting humane horsemanship, or making a plea for the endangered Mustang breed.
XXXAs the screenwriter of “Hidalgo,” perhaps I am much to blame for the questions surrounding Hopkins’ memory and possible “Little Big Man” embellishments. I took what was a very banal, saddle-tech account of Hopkins’ own desert memories of 1891 and turned them into an action-adventure celebration of a story that has long fascinated me. Today, some critics actually believe that Hopkins himself dreamed up bandit ambuscades, hunting leopards, daring rescues, a three second victory margin, and the dramatic name of the race: the Ocean of Fire. He did not. I did. Movies are entertainment and I obviously heightened the “Based On” story to create an entertaining theatrical film. 3,000 miles is a long ride without some rising conflict

Viggo Mortensen as Frank Hopkins in Hidalgo. Despite a barrage of attacks from detractors, the life of Frank T. Hopkins and his well recorded teachings on horsemanship remain widely respected among the people who knew him personally.

XXXMaybe both the late Gertrude Hopkins and I are much to blame for giving the would-be debunkers the flammable material they needed to try to set fire to the story of an American cowboy in the Middle East—to burn Frank Hopkins as a symbol of what they mistakenly, but understandably, viewed as politically incorrect propaganda released by the corporate titan, Disney: Hidalgo-gate or Enron, or however they wished to frame it. In the smoke of the media fray it seemed that Hopkins had become-- in the minds of some--a contemptible mix of George Bush and Michael Eisner, riding a big-budget Hollywood horse into Baghdad and yelling yee-ha while stuffing his saddle bags with pilfered cash.
XXXI think it was Roger Ebert who responded to this hysteria with: get a life.
XXXMany of the 72 years of historians and writers who wrote of Frank’s accomplishments in horse history books and journals knew the man personally and valued his friendship. Just like the Pyle’s, and the Conroy’s, they were horsemen, too, and they were alive during Hopkins’ time. They respected him enough as a person, believed in him enough as a horseman, to validate his reputation as one the greatest distance riders of all-time.
XXXAs Walt Pyle says today, “I knew Frank Hopkins. They didn’t.”

John Fusco is a writer and Spanish Mustang preservationist. He is the founder of the Choctaw Indian Pony Conservation Program. A long time fan of Frank Hopkins’, he initiated this site in 2002, in association with the Horse of the America’s Registry, as a tribute site to Hopkins and an informational site on Spanish Mustangs. Among his movie credits are “Thunderheart,”“Dreamkeeper,” “Spirit: Stallion of the Cimarron,” and “Hidalgo,” which won the 2005 Spur Award from the Western Writers of America.