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Les Hilton |
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Famed horse trainer Les Hilton had apprenticed under Will Rogers, and was hired by Twentieth Century-Fox to train both Flicka and her stunt double Goldie during the series. He lived on Sparks Street in Burbank Rancho, north of Griffith Park, where he had his house, stables, and a backyard office where he could keep an eye on his horses.
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"Legendary horse trainer Les Hilton. Note: The whip
was used only as an extension of the arm and
hand, used only to guide the animal."
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Hilton spent a great deal of time with Johnny Washbrook, riding alongside him and meticulously teaching him how to handle Flicka. Johnny Washbrook says “Other than sitting on a pony at the age of three while someone walked us around in a little corral, I had no riding experience prior to the series—I was a real ‘city slicker’ from Toronto.” But under the expert guidance of Les Hilton, he became a very talented rider—especially on Flicka. |
Les taught Flicka a lot of clever tricks, like this one where
Flicka unties a rope with his mouth to open a gate
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Hilton had formerly trained the mules in the Francis the Talking Mule series of motion pictures, and was very experienced and well-respected as one of the elite of the horse-training world. Hilton was also the trainer of Bamboo Harvester, the saddlebred palomino stallion of the TV series Mr. Ed. It is said that to get Mr. Ed to move his lips to coincide with the voice-overs, Hilton used nylon fishing line. The fishing line was attached to the headstall (which is why you never see Ed speaking without his headstall on) and ran through his mouth. When Mr. Ed was required to speak, Hilton gently pulled the line and Mr. Ed responded by moving his lips—a natural response to something moving in his mouth. Hilton also taught horses how to open and close doors, untie knots, wave a flag and hold items in their mouths for various scenes. Movie horse trainers use a lot of tricks and tools of the trade—many for their horses’ safety, like putting rubber cups on their hooves and non-stick tape on their teeth when scenes are filmed where the horses are supposed to be fighting. Those scenes are done slowly, and then the film is speeded up so that it looks like a vicious fight. Les Hilton trained a great many of the famous and not-so-famous horses that will all live forever in films. He passed away in 1973.
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