The Long Riders' Guild

Hidalgo

Everyone is singing...
♪♪
Unbridled. Unbroken. Unbeaten.  UNTRUE! ♪♪

The 1953 musical, "Calamity Jane" starring Doris Day, was "only a movie."  Yet the 2004 film "Hidalgo" starring Viggo Mortensen is advertised as being "based on a true story."  The difference is that Calamity Jane really did have equestrian adventures, ride in Wyoming, and meet Buffalo Bill Cody - three things no one can prove Frank Hopkins ever did.  We should be concerned when a happy-go-lucky Doris Day musical contains more fact than a mislabeled $80 million horse opera.  

For the latest news about Frank Hopkins' deceptions, please click on one of the many links below.

New! 2014:   Walt Disney and Hidalgo – A Decade of Deceit

 Vermont Historical Society debunks Hidalgo

 Wild West Magazine Editor denounces Hopkins as an "unabashed fraud."

Dr. Vine DeLoria Jr. calls on Viggo Mortensen to produce his Lakota witness

 "Hidalgo the most racist film of 2004" Professor Jack Shaheen

"Disney's Hidalgo:  A New Hollywood Low," by Dr. Anthony Toth

New evidence shows  Vermont Historians uncovered the Hopkins Hoax 34 years ago!

The Royal Geographical Society's magazine, Geographical, declares Hopkins a fraud.

Anthropological Convention warned that Hidalgo's audience "has become a tourist in an historical drive-by event."

The Dutch equestrian magazine, Bit, denounces Hopkins as "a first-class liar."

The Press isn't buying Disney's "true story"

One of Germany's most prestigious newspapers says film "smells like a stable."

French-Canadian publication can't believe anyone takes Hopkins seriously.

"Frank's claims were just so much hot air," declares Arabian specialist

"Liar, Liar Chaps on Fire" - Outside magazine

"Hidalgo - a Tale of Conquest based on False Pretenses" - London's The Independent

"Hidalgo is based on a not-so-true story" - Slate Magazine

"Hidalgo - not what you think," warns equestrian journalist Don Blazer

"Long Trail of Lies" - The Los Angeles Times

"Hidalgo: Caught Horse-Thieving" - The Washington Post

"Has Disney been taken for a ride?" - England's Daily Mail


More revelations about Hopkins and Hollywood
 

 A misleading website and unverifiable photographs of Hopkins in the saddle

The truth about Mustangs versus Arabian horses

A Quick Overview of Frank's Fantasies

Lakota Historian Dr. Vine Deloria Jr. warns that Frank Hopkins was "The World's Greatest Liar"!

Hidalgo and Other Stories, by Frank T. Hopkins - the book Hollywood doesn't want you to read

Articles in the world press about Frank Hopkins

Timeline of Deceit!

Walt Disney hijacks the American education system

Frank Hopkins' first interview with the Press

Disney versus The World

An open letter to the Walt Disney Company

Academics call for Historical Accuracy in Disney film

Trail Blazer is the first equestrian magazine in the USA brave enough to print the truth about Hopkins!

Library of Congress warns writer there is no proof of Frank's exploits - and is ignored!

Disney's Super Bowl Deception

"Anything Goes" - America's first Great Endurance Race

Criminal Psychologist denounces Hopkins

 

Click here to see a list of almost eighty academics, researchers, librarians, genealogists, authors, and experts who assisted The Long Riders' Guild in this unparallelled equestrian research project.

Named and Shamed:  a list of reporters and publications  - including USA Today, the Chicago Sun Times, and Western Horseman - who failed to check the facts!

Click on image for more information

The book Hollywood doesn't want you to read!


Cover image courtesy of the Library of Congress

Click here for more information

 

 


 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Hidalgo and Other Stories by Frank T. Hopkins
Edited by CuChullaine and Basha O'Reilly
Foreword by Professor David Dary

It started as a search for heroes.

It became a hunt for the most elusive equestrian charlatan of all time.

If Frank Hopkins is to be believed, he led one of the most exciting, challenging and colorful (albeit unrecorded) lives in the late nineteenth century. No one rode more miles, eluded more danger, or befriended more famous people than he did.

During the 1930s and 40s the self-proclaimed legend told a naïve American public that he had won nearly five hundred endurance races, including an imaginary race across Arabia on a mythical mustang named “Hidalgo.”

Hopkins’ remarkable career supposedly began when he became a dispatch rider for the US government on his twelfth birthday in 1877. According to his mythology, this Renaissance Man of the Old West went on to work as a buffalo hunter, Indian fighter, African explorer, endurance racer, trick rider, bounty hunter, Rough Rider, big game guide, secret agent, Pinkerton detective and star of the Wild West show.

Experts beg to differ.

This book contains an unprecedented study, undertaken by more than seventy experts in five countries, ranging from the Curator of the Buffalo Bill Museum to the former Sultan of Yemen. These academics investigated the historical improbability of Hopkins’ claims and weighed him on his merit, not his myth.

The resulting exhaustive study revealed that Hopkins had maintained a spirited disregard for the truth, plagiarized material from famous authors, slandered genuine American heroes and perpetrated a massive fraud for nearly one hundred years.

Far from being the star of Buffalo Bill Cody’s Wild West show for 32 years, for example, the counterfeit cowboy was discovered working as a subway tunnel digger in Philadelphia and a horse-handler for Ringling Brothers Circus.

It is his endurance racing pretensions, however, that have brought Hopkins his greatest notoriety and made him the hero of a Hollywood movie. Yet there is not even a documented photograph of Frank Hopkins in the saddle!

Here then are all the known writings of Frank T. Hopkins, published in their entirety for the first time in history.

Go to Barnes & Noble for more details or
Click here to go to Amazon.co.uk

Please note that this title is normally shipped within 3 to 5 working days from the date of order.

Home            Top of page