I suspect I’ll enjoy Hidalgo — as a work of fiction. From Disney tale based on true story? Hold your horses:
On Friday, Disney-owned Touchstone Pictures releases Hidalgo the movie based on “the incredible true story” of Frank T. Hopkins’ 1890 race across the Arabian desert on his trusty mustang.Trouble is a host of scholars say they haven’t found a shred of evidence that this so-called “Ocean of Fire” race existed. Nor that Hopkins rode in any of the 400 endurance races that he claimed to have won, including one from Galveston, Texas, to Rutland, Vt.
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Hopkins claimed to be a half-Sioux known as the “Laramie Kid,” who became a government dispatch rider in 1877 at age 12. He said he witnessed the 1890 massacre of Lakota Indians at Wounded Knee, won 400 endurance races, rode with Teddy Roosevelt’s Rough Riders and appeared in Buffalo Bill’s Wild West Show.“We have now been working on the research for more than a year, during which time nearly 80 experts from five countries have demolished every single one of Hopkins’ claims,” Long Riders founders CuChullaine and Basha O’Reilly said in an e-mail.