Favorite Disney Horses

After digging out my Sleeping Beauty Colorforms with Samson the horse, I thought it might be fun to look at a few more Disney horses.

Horses factor into many Disney movies, especially the animated ones. Some have important roles in the film; in others they are secondary to the main characters or even just part of the background.

Here are a few of my favorites.

Hallmark ornament of Nokk and Elsa; photo from Google Images.

Nokk, who is featured in Frozen II, is a Disney horse who plays an important role. Along with Elsa, he helps save the town of Arendelle from a flood and then remains with Elsa as her mount in the Enchanted Forest.

I am also very fond of Bullseye from the Toy Story films. I have a small plastic model of Bullseye 

and a stuffed Bullseye that is my stable mascot. As you can see, he is a favorite of the grands and well loved.

I may not be a unicorn lover, but I am absolutely a fan of Pegasus! He is not the brightest crayon in the box in Disney's depiction of him, but he still is fun.

This movie is full of Green mythology, art, and more. I even used it in my classroom a couple of times when teaching Greek Mythology - the kiddos loved seeing the references to the myths they had learned about.

My favorite Disney horse comes from one of my least favorite Disney movies.

Maximus from Tangled! He's strong, conscientious about his duty, and in the end, simply hilarious.

Here's a clip that always makes me laugh.

There are many more Disney horses, too many for me to write about. Want to take a look at them? Go here for a comprehensive list of every Disney Horse.

Disney Colorforms & Some Horse Color History

 Tucked away in my closet underneath a stack of my teaching bags is a flat box from my childhood.

Colorforms! A very old set of them and from the 1959 Disney movie Sleeping Beauty.

I hadn't opened the box in years and I was curious as to what was still left of the pieces.

The board was in great shape and still had a picture that I had made long ago.

Naturally I had done Samson, the horse!

I found the other horse pieces and considered changing the picture up for a moment, but then I decided to leave it alone - I liked the idea that something I had created during childhood was still intact.

I did sort out the clings and there are some missing. The clinginess is gone, too, but that is due to dust that got on the board and pieces over time. I can easily clean that off with a damp cloth.

As I looked at Samson, the horse from the film, I realized that the Colorform horse was different from the movie Samson.

The black mane and tail had been changed to a white one. (Probably to make it more visible against the background.)

Movie photo and photo of Hagen Renaker Disney pieces from Google Images.

The white horse/black mane and tail was a very popular depiction of horses in the 1950s and 1960s.

Hagen Renaker's first circus ponies were produced in the fall of 1955 through the spring of 1956. Both have white bodies with black manes and tails.

Other companies that produced model horses used the same color scheme. 

Hartland certainly did, 

and perhaps Breyer's alabaster color is a tweak on the color scheme. My old mold Proud Arabian Mare from 1958 - 1959.

Breyer's charcoal color, first seen in 1961, is a reverse of the color.

Perhaps the charcoal color was inspired by the pieces with white bodies and black manes and tails?

A recent Samson, one that was designed to be a cake topper.

I've explored the white body/black mane and tail color before. There are several blog posts about it, so instead of putting the links here, go to the search box and type in "black mane" to pull them up.

Tomorrow we will look at some other Disney horses.

Stay 'tooned!

A 1950s/1960s Color Phenomenon

While puttering with my ponies the other day, I got to wondering about the color on the original Hagen Renaker circus ponies.

The Head Up and Head Down circus ponies were produced in the fall of 1955 through the spring of 1956. Both have white bodies with black manes and tails, a very unusual color for horses.

As I thought, I realized that I could think of several other examples of this color, all from about the same time period as the Hagen Renaker circus ponies.

In 1959, Disney released the movie Sleeping Beauty with a prince who rode a carrot-loving mount named Samson.

 A still from the movie taken from Google Images.

Hagen Renaker released Samson along with characters from the movie in the spring of 1959 until the spring of 1960. The HR Samson is very hard to find and highly collectible. (Photo taken from Google Images.)

 My Samson cake topper.

Disney wasn't the only movie production company using a white horse with a black mane and tail. Ever watch Luno the White Stallion as a kid? I did! 

Still shots are difficult to find; this is the best quality one that I could find. (Google Images.)

The story of a boy named Tim who had a marble horse that could come alive and take him on adventures, it aired in the mid 1960s. Go here to watch an episode.

Other companies followed suit in releasing horses with white bodies and black manes and tails.

Several Japan manufacturers copied Hagen Renaker's Head Up pony and then created others to go with it. (I have yet to find a copy of HR's Head Down circus pony.)

I have no documentation for dates on these little horses, but they are about an inch and a half tall and made of a very hard rubberized plastic. I ran across them online and snagged them because they are circus ponies.

The Hartland Manufacturing Company also produced models in white with black manes and tails.

I could not find a date for this Hartland horse in my books, but the horse and rider sets began to be produced in the mid 1950s. (Google Images.)

The Hartland Arabian in the upper left was produced 1962-1964. (Google Images.)

As for Breyer, I do not know of any early models in this color. I have wondered if the alabaster color (white with grey mane and tail) was a more realistic rendering of the color. (Or is their charcoal color a reverse of the white with black?)

While there are some horses found in this color pattern, they are usually born black and as they mature, their color changes to all-white.

For example, most Lippizaner babies are born black and then grey out as they age. (Google Images))

A maturing Lippizaner showing the whiter dappled coat and the darker mane, tail, and legs. (Google Images.)

I am trying to figure out just where this 1950s-1960s phenomenon of mature white horses with black manes and tails began. Was it Hartland? Hagen Renaker or Disney? Or was it someone else? And why was it so popular?

I intend to keep looking, and if I find anything out, I will post it here.

Sleeping Beauty's Horse, Samson

You never know when or where you might come across a model horse - I saw this piece on Amazon while looking for something else. I clicked the link to go look at him and discovered that he was already sold out. Checking back several months later, a few had come in stock.

It's Samson from the Disney movie, Sleeping Beauty.

Believe it or not, he is a cake topper!

 I love him, although I wish the squirrel was not in the saddle.

He is a very heavy plastic, not the cheap lightweight plastic that I was expecting. Surely as heavy as he is, he would leave more than hoof prints on your birthday cake - he'd sink right in! 

I can't believe that he's supposed to be a cake topper - while he's on a shelf with other models in my collection, I may just pull him out next August for my own birthday cake.