Hidalgo producers respond to controversy

Director Joe Johnston believes that attempts by the likes of Guild founders Basha and CuChullaine O'Reilly to discredit Hopkins are based on their offense to the notion that Hidalgo bred with pure Arabian mares. "Frank in one of his stories that he told after coming back... I don't know if it was a sheik or someone who owned an Arabian horse was so impressed with what he had done, that he wanted Hidalgo to breed with an Arab mare," Johnston said. "To someone who holds the purity of Arabian equestrian bloodlines almost as a religion, that's like... blasphemy. What this person is saying is that an animal of mixed blood can't, there's no way you could have done this. What if you talked about people that way? It's completely bigoted. And while you can say, 'Well, animals aren't [people],' to me, it's just strange."

Native American scholar Dr. Vine Deloria Jr. attacked Hopkins claims to be of Native American heritage, an element also addressed in the film. Star Viggo Mortensen said he spoke with Native Americans whose family personally verified Hopkins' story. "To have many families on reservations to talk about Frank Hopkins specifically, and his horsemanship and his connection to their tribes with stories that have been handed down through generations, why would that not be true? In my experience and the stories I've heard, these people, some of them don't even speak English and certainly could [care less] about Hollywood movies. But [they] say, 'Yeah, my mother told me that and this guy, this and that, a painted horse...' and it speaks for itself."

The filmmakers also stand by the notion that any movie is allowed to embellish history. Johnston said, "There are fictionalized Hollywood elements we created to make the story more entertaining. But there is a basis in fact that Frank Hopkins, who was a very well-known endurance racer in this country, was invited to take part in this race because he was billed as the world's greatest horse and rider team, he and Hidalgo. A sheik who saw the show, or was told about the show, took offense to that and invited him to Saudi Arabia. He went and took part in the race and won the race. That's the basis in fact that the story was based on. And no, we never set out to make a documentary. We wanted to make it as entertaining as it could be, so there are elements that are fictionalized."

Mortensen added, "It's a story about a real person and real events and it's expanded on like all stories. Like the identity of our nations were made up of expanding on stories of whether it's Martin Luther King or George Washington or Babe Ruth or Buffalo Bill. That's how we think of ourselves as Americans. Any nation expands or retells. These stories that I've heard from different places, there are slight variations and then they all come back to being about the same person and horsemanship and going over and racing and accepting this challenge."

To read more on the position of the Long Rider's Guild, go to http://www.thelongridersguild.com/hopkins.htm

to learn more about Frank Hopkins, go to www.frankhopkins.com.