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| Frank
Hopkins: The Authenticity of Romance By Tom Hebert
Saving the blood and the heritage and thereby securing for the future the Spanish Mustang or Cayuse, the authentic horse of the actual American west, was a really close call. But in all this there is something more critical at stake than saving a rare breed, which something I will get to in a few moments. (It has to do with saving them in a modern context that assures these fine horses some protection beyond habit, law, and the passion of Mustang enthusiasts.) But first, saving them. While even parts of the American government including President Theodore Roosevelt and later President William Howard Taft were honestly concerned that like their buffalo, Indians were a "vanishing race," as engines of war, their Indian horses were also part of that government's Final Solution. Many important Americans already understood that this disappearance of the straight Mustang was a "tragic and shameful chapter of our history."
Five things to consider about Hopkins: Item one: Frank Showed Up We start with the indisputable fact that Frank Hopkins was an active proponent of the Mustang at a critical time in the survival of America's original Spanish horses. For years, Hopkins traveled and spoke about them and the need for humane treatment of the breed he called, "the most significant animal on the North American continent." His life did not go unnoticed. His stories were picked up and passed around because they felt right. In our time, he made an important appearance in the book, The Mustangs by the Texas historian J. Frank Dobie, first published in 1934 with later editions into the fifties. Dobie quotes Hopkins writing about the race from Galveston, Texas to Rutland, Vermont in 1886:
Of course, there were a lot of charlatans left over from the Buffalo Bill era, men and women who composed fictitious biographies and made subsequent careers of it and were occasionally debunked. But in his fabulous stories about these Spanish horses and his rides upon them, Frank T. Hopkins rather rises above all that. Item two: Authenticity This is usually defined as "conforming to fact and therefore worthy of trust, reliance, or belief, and having a claimed and verifiable origin or authorship; not counterfeit or copied." In this regard, there is in Hopkins both an authenticity of spirit and ground knowledge missing in most such lives, a sense that he knew what he was doing. This is most clearly seen in the fact that like Charlie Siringo, Hopkins always put his horse first. While many of us are mostly riders, Frank Hopkins was a horseman. The British scholar Sean Kingston carves authenticity down even further:
So, since we viewers are all involved in a struggle with Hopkins (the viewed), let's interrogate Frank, hold him up to the light, see if he wins or loses. Frank's Article Number 15 on this website, "A Judge's Impression of the Ride," from the Vermont Horse and Bridle Trail Bulletin, October 1941, begins with this note: "Due to the fame of his 1886 ride, Hopkins was invited to Vermont yearly to serve as judge for the Green Mountain Horse Association's 100-mile Ride." In this report by Hopkins himself, one gets a true sense of the experienced distance-rider he was. But is it true, "conforming to fact and therefore worthy of trust?" For example, he makes this seemingly wild assertion:
That happens to be correct. In my fairly serious studies of Indian horsemanship, I have come across that notion before, particularly with Northwest Cayuse Indian horses who were not taught or allowed to trot. They only loped because trotting was beneath an Indian horseman and often a more efficient gait for their Spanish horses as well as a more comfortable way of going for the rider. And Lo! Here is Hopkins knowing that quite odd fact about Indian horsemanship. Now today, in organized endurance races there are few horses loping the entire day. But modern riders would agree that loping could have worked back then because we don't know how Hopkin's horses were bred, built, and trained. It is a fact that with their long springy stride, Spanish horses are built to lope. Well, how did Hopkins know all this, if he wasn't horseback on Indian ponies? You can't make it up sitting on a porch in Rutland, Vermont and it wasn't much abroad in the horse world back then either. And also, there is his evident good sense in his comment above that a horse should be allowed to "travel his natural gait." Only horsemen know this and it even rings true to the modern distance rider that the slower pitched but sure, savvy, and efficient Mustang in their own time and with their own way of going can win over Arabians in the long races, in particular. Indeed, as the Tributes pages of this website attest, the stories of Hopkins and his adventures match what we Mustang horsemen know to be true about these Spanish horses. Just look at Don Funk and his Spanish Mustang stallion, Geronimo's Warrior, who have ridden to two national endurance mileage championships in the AERC with over 2000 miles per season in both 2000 and 2001. Yet, as I noted at the outset, Hopkins' evident authenticity serves even more major purposes than historical accuracy and saving this noble breed of horse. Item three: Heritage and Romance In a 1996 book by L. G. Moses, Wild West Shows and the Images of American Indians, 1883-1933, the book jacket copy reads:
To me, like Show Indians, through his stories Hopkins himself "helped preserve American cultural heritage through decades of forced assimilation," which assimilation even the horses suffered and which heritage is mostly, thank God, Romance and Adventure, sometimes factual, sometimes fabulous, but something our kids need for their dreams and our future. Factual or fabulous, doesn't much matter which, as long as the stories are grounded in fact, are done well, and somehow good in the soul. Like Frank's. Item four: National Songs We must be able to celebrate America's great, ripe stories, the emblematic, iconic root-stuff of campfires & empires that, in the end, make America, the world's cock-of-the-walk, worth the hassle. Without these written-down stories all else is Dark Ages, when no light escapes, when most memory, invention, libraries, and the record of lives of the common people are lost, and even kings are easily scraped from history in mere minutes by budgeting scribes recycling old hide. Therefore, to re-discover the epic or heroic realm we must trick out, as the philosopher (and horse trainer) Vicki Hearne has said, "the syntax of the heroic as a central mode of being human, of a pleasure earlier than love and nearer to heaven." Because, as Vicki simply says, the stories we tell matter. We thus require those hero-hearts, our Odysseuses, our questers, our great chiefs, those knight-warriors like Frank T. Hopkins whose hero-story will edify us and teach our children's children the nature and practice of courage and moral fiber and toughing it out. Because without great stories like Hopkins', tales for our time, our children weep and will not dance. And will not take to horse. Heroic stories like those of Hopkins also remind us that if as children we learn that we must go forth, we must also learn that there are real-world skills to learn and confidences to gain. Children must learn with a secure knowledge that questers do generally return safely, some even to great honor, renown, and perhaps like Frank, a movie. Finally So, the fifth fact about Frank is that his life and work inspires us. Gathering in the world from Wyoming and Vermont to Aden and Arabia, from then 'til now, he breaks down barriers of time and place. You see, the horses are safer because Frank T. Hopkins still causes us to dream about adventure on a beautiful horse, outstripping the wind. Tom Hebert, a management/public policy consultant and writer, has been fooling with horses most of his life. He proudly owns Whirlwind— a registered black International Barb, and Eusebio—a slate-colored, line-backed grullo registered with the Spanish Mustang Registry. Hebert currently lives on the Umatilla Indian Reservation, just outside of Pendleton, Oregon, where he is consultant to the Confederated Tribes (the Cayuse, Walla Walla and Umatilla tribes) on a proposed Umatilla Tribal Horse Program. The Legend of Hidalgo As told by: Runs-with-the-Buffalo AKA Leo Pard Northern Pikunii, Blackfoot elder (Recorded by Angelique Midthunder) This Indian had a pinto horse. And he used to race people, all kinds of people. Different ones would claim they had a real fast horse and he kept meeting all challengers and he kept beating them. Finally these people from across the ocean heard about this horse. So they came and they challenged the owner of this pinto horse. They said, "We have horses across the sea that are the fastest horses anyplace and we know we can beat your horse." So they loaded up the horse, took it across the ocean and held a race. They said the rider, this Indian guy, kind of held his horse up. He was trailing, and these Arabians were leaving him in the dust. Until finally they started coming up towards the final part of the race and this guy turned his pinto horse loose and he came up and left everybody. So be it.. |
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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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