Galloping to the Cinema Trivia Quiz

Answer: The Pirate

The Pie was a bit hard to handle, so was called The Pirate by the owner who couldn't handle him. (In the original book by Enid Bagnold, he was a piebald unimaginatively named Piebald.) Velvet, of course, tamed him with her wholehearted adolescent girl's love for her horse. Deciding that the jockey they hired to ride The Pie in the Grand National wasn't sympathetic to the horse, Velvet pretended to be a jockey and rode him herself. They won the race, but Velvet collapsed and fell off before they reached the area where jockeys were expected to dismount for the post-race weigh-in, and were disqualified.

The picture used in the question actually shows the horse who played Pie in the 1960 television version of 'National Velvet'.

Answer: Misty

The event called the Pony Swim forms the basis of Marguerite Henry's classic story 'Misty of Chincoteague', on which the film 'Misty' is based. The real-life Misty was a pinto (with black and white patches) who was actually born in captivity and raised on Marguerite Henry's farm in Illinois. She can be seen in the film as an equine extra, although she did not play herself.

Misty was returned to Chincoteague as an adult, and her hoof prints (placed as part of the film's island debut) can be seen in the cement in front of the Roxy Movie Theatre. She and one of her foals, Stormy (subject of another of Henry's books) have had their bodies preserved taxidermically, and they are on the property of the family that owned her for the latter years of her life. In the movie, the children of the Beebe family plan to capture The Phantom, and then buy her in the auction. Misty is her foal, and they struggle to secure both horses against the bidding of a mysterious stranger.

Answer: Lipizzaner

This movie is closely based on historical fact. The Lipizzaner stallions that performed amazing feats of dressage in the Spanish Riding School in Vienna were originally bred in the Slovenian town of Lipica (formerly Lipizza); contemporary horses are bred near Piber, Austria.

The name of the Spanish Riding School comes from the fact that the breed originally used Spanish horses as a major source of the breeding stock for the development of the Lipizzaners. Apparently, George Patton was quite a connoisseur of fine riding, and agreed to help Colonel Podhajsky rescue the stallions from an uncertain fate when Soviet troops liberated Vienna from Nazi occupation.

The movie dramatizes that event.

Answer: Mark Lester

Mark Lester first achieved fame in the title role of Lionel Bart's 1968 film 'Oliver!', then received widespread acclaim for his portrayal of Philip Ransome, who (under the guidance of The Colonel, whom he meets on the moors) learns to connect to the world of nature as a step to developing relationships with other humans.

His development of a deeply sympathetic relationship with the pony, and his distress when it runs off, are pivotal points in the process. The film was shot on location, and the wild beauty of the moors adds to the viewer's awareness of the boy's increasing understanding of the world around him.

Answer: Arabian

Alec called his horse (played by Cass Ole, with Fai Jur the main stunt double) The Black, and the two formed a deep bond while they were stranded together. Back home, they met Henry, a retired jockey played by Mickey Rooney, who helped Alec train The Black as a racehorse.

They entered a match race against two champion racers, and won it despite a near-catastrophic start. Mickey Rooney had previously played Mi, the retired and embittered jockey who helped Velvet Brown train The Pie in 'National Velvet' - he obviously seemed a natural casting decision for the part of retired jockey!

Answer: Phar Lap

The name Phar Lap is from a Thai word for lightning, suggesting the brilliance and speed which it was hoped the foal would produce. And he certainly did! After a few warmup races in which he did not place, he won 37 out of his last 43 races. He finished second in three races, and third twice. The only race in which he did not finish in the money was the 1931 Melbourne Cup, in which he placed eighth while carrying one of the heaviest weights ever assigned by the handicappers for that race.

The movie starts after Phar Lap's mysterious death in 1932 (he is popularly believed to have been poisoned by American criminals because his surprise win, at long odds, in a Mexican race had cost professional gamblers a lot of money), and goes back to the day Harry Telford first acquired the horse. It tells of the strong bond between horse and trainer, as well as with the strapper Tommy Woodcock, who was traveling with Phar Lap when he died, and shows Phar Lap justifying their faith in him as he becomes a successful racer.

Such was the adoration of the general public for Phar Lap that his remains have been treated almost like relics of a saint. His hide has been mounted and is on display at the Melbourne Museum; his over-sized heart is held in Canberra at the National Museum of Australia, and his skeleton went home to the land of his birth, where it can be seen at the Museum of New Zealand Te Papa Tongarewa in Wellington.

The picture in the quiz shows Phar Lap racing at Flemington Racecourse around 1930, ridden by his usual jockey, Jim Pike. The incorrect answer options were nicknames used to describe Phar Lap in the popular media.

Answer: The film was narrated by Black Beauty.

You all know the story of Black Beauty, the beautiful and loving horse who suffers a series of misfortunes, leading to an ever-worsening life situation through a string of owners, until he finally finds a pleasant retirement and is reunited with Joe Greene, who had accidentally made Beauty ill when he was a young and inexperienced stable hand.

The book was written as a series of short incidents recalled by the horse as it pondered its life, and drew life lessons from its memories. The movie also uses a narrative structure (much disliked by some critics), with Alan Cumming providing the voice of Black Beauty. The film was not a commercial success, despite including some well-known actors. Sean Bean (Boromir in 'The Lord of the Rings') played Farmer Grey; Peter Davison (the fifth doctor in 'Doctor Who', and Tristan Farnon in 'All Creatures Great and Small', both UK television programs) played Squire Gordon; Eleanor Bron (Ahme in 'Help!') played Lady Wexmire and the comedian Peter Cook played Lord Wexmire.

Answer: Robert Redford

Robert Redford portrayed Tom Booker, a man with a way with horses, who agreed to help the horse Pilgrim in his recovery, provided that Grace and her mother Annie also came to participate in the process on his ranch. Of course, the horse and girl did eventually recover. An unexpected (to them, not to the audience) complication arose when Annie and Tom fell in love with each other, and Annie was torn between Tom and her husband Rob, with whom she eventually realized she belonged.

According to the writer of the original book, Redford's character was modeled on the horse handler Buck Brannaman, who acted as Redford's double, as well as being a consultant for the film.

Answer: Seabiscuit

Hardtack, also called sea biscuit, is a type of bread formerly used by sailors because it kept well (or at least, stayed as good as it ever was) for long periods of time. The racehorse Seabiscuit was born in 1933, and raced uninspiringly until Tom Smith began to train him in 1936. As well as having a number of impressive victories, he is remembered for a 1938 match race against War Admiral (a son of Man o'War, making him Seabiscuit's uncle) in which he beat the Triple Crown winner by four lengths. The race in the question's image represented his comeback from injury to gain a major victory near the end of his career.

The 2003 film was based on Laura Hillenbrand's 2001 biography 'Seabiscuit: An American Legend'. The events of Seabiscuit's racing career were faithfully reproduced, but liberties were taken with the personal lives of the people involved with him (owner Charles S. Howard, trainer Tom Smith, jockey Red Pollard) for dramatic effect. Most of the racing scenes were filmed on location at the actual tracks, but Pimlico had changed so much over the intervening years that Keeneland Racecourse in Lexington KY was used as a substitute venue.

Answer: Zebra

I hope you looked at the picture, as well as taking the hint from the film's title. Stripes, a baby zebra, was accidentally left behind by a travelling circus, and adopted by a former racehorse trainer who gave it to the care of his teenage daughter, Channing, a girl with a burning desire to be a jockey that fit in nicely with Stripes's deluded belief that he was a racehorse.

His discovery that he was actually a zebra provided a temporary setback, but Stripes and Channing persevered with help from the other animals on the farm, and won the big match race at the end.