Talking of HORSES!

NOVEMBER THE 5TH  2011 WAS or would have been the 100th birthday of the King of the Cowboys Roy Rogers.

He was my physical hero from age 7.  When I first saw my first Roy Rogers movie at age 7 - a color movie - I thought I had stepped into another world - a handsome clean cut fancy dressed cowboy riding this superb golden Palomino with a long white mane and tail, running like a bullet across the West.

Trigger was the horses name - so beautiful and so fast....yes indeed I knew the horse was fast, I could just tell he was. It was many years later I discovered Trigger (real registered name was Golden Cloud) was from the stock of a horse racing stable partly owned by Bing Crosby. All the details are on my website under "The UN-official Website of Roy Rogers and Trigger." The details of how Roy finally bought Trigger is there also, with many other interesting facts and horse articles for you who are into the horse world, or people you may know who are.

One fact I want to relate here is the story of when Roy was making a movie in and around one small town out West. Some local cowboys came and were making fun of Roy. The director of the movie said it did not bother Roy one bit, picking on him. But then they started to pick on Trigger then Roy got upset. The cowboys wanted to race against Trigger, it looked like they were riding horses that some may have been from the race track. Roy finally threw down a fist-full of money and said if they could match it, the race was on. The cowboys scrambled around and came up with the money. Roy said he wanted a 1/4 mile race. The race got going, and the director of the movie said Roy leaned forward and touched Trigger's neck (the cue to open up and fly) - Trigger sprang into high gear and Roy was sucked back into the saddle. The director said there was no way Trigger was going to loose that race - he enjoyed the challenge. Roy rode back, picked up the money winnings and said, "Any time boys, Trigger and I will do it, any time boys."

That is quite the true story.

Now the biggest mistake Roy ever did was to mount Trigger. I was at the Roy Rogers Museum a few months before it closed down. The mounted Trigger was not at all like the beautiful Trigger in Roy's movies - not at all good - a bad mistake for Roy to skin Trigger and mount him - not the same looking horse at all.

Now the cowboy TV channel I believe has bought the mounted Trigger. They plan to have a "float" in the famous Rose Bowl Parade - January 2nd - with the mounted Trigger and Bullet on the float. Apparently there will be 100 Palomino horses and riders leading the float - 100 for the 100th birthday of Roy if he was still alive.

I can tell you right now that many of those Palomino horses will be beautiful as the real live (under 25 years old) Trigger was beautiful. And they are going to make the mounted Trigger look terrible .... sad to say but it will be a very disappointing view. It should not be done. The real Trigger is worthy of no such specticle being made of him, and it will be a specticle not worthy of the name Roy Rogers and Trigger. I just hope the TV cameras do not go close in on the mounted Trigger. I was there at the Museum before it closed and only feet away from the mounted Trigger. Very unlike the real beautiful Trigger of the Movies - a real meltdown indeed.
..........
..........