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The Horse with the Flying Tail is a 1960 American documentary film by Walt Disney Productions, that won the Best Documentary award at the 33rd Academy Awards.[1][2] The movie is about the palomino horse Nautical, which won the team gold medal at the 1959 Pan American Games. It was released theatrically on a double bill with Swiss Family Robinson, and was later broadcast on Walt Disney's Wonderful World of Color in 1964.
| The Horse with the Flying Tail | |
|---|---|
 A scene from the film | |
| Directed by | Larry Lansburgh |
| Written by | Janet Lansburgh |
| Produced by | Larry Lansburgh |
| Narrated by | George Fenneman |
| Edited by | Warren Adams |
| Music by | William Lava |
Production company | |
| Distributed by | Buena Vista Distribution Co. |
Release date |
|
Running time | 48 minutes |
| Country | United States |
| Language | English |
The film portrays this horse as having been a nondescript stock horse, but he was sired by an American Quarter Horse named Muchacho de Oro out of an Army Remount mare of mostly Thoroughbred breeding.
This horse's registered name was Pelo de Oro, which was given to him at birth. He became an open jumper and was shown in the national horse show circuit in the United States. Open jumpers compete for scores based on faults (if a jump is refused or a rail knocked down) and time elapsed to complete the course. Prior to his Olympic fame, he had a reputation as a temperamental jumper who was inclined to stop at water-and-ditch jumps. Such refusals would disqualify a jumper from an event. His nickname among competitors was "Sneaky Pete" for those reasons.
He was an excellent jumper (when willing), however, and when he cleared a fence, Sneaky Pete consistently would raise his tail in the characteristic fashion shown in the photograph displayed from the film. That uplifted tail, raised so high, was repeated by the horse for each faultless jump and spectators at horse shows relied upon this signal from the horse to record his scores, without waiting for the results from the judges, hence the title of the film about his career.
When he was obtained by Hugh Wiley, Wiley enlisted the help of the United States Equestrian Team coach, Bertalan de Nemethy, and together the two men trained the horse to be the Olympic-level open jumper he became. "Sneaky Pete" then became known as Nautical and was ridden regularly by members of the U. S. Equestrian Team in international competitions.[3]
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