Hoof Beats: The White Stallion, Part I

Joan Fry, Hoof BeatsSat, September 5, 2026 at 10:03 AM UTC

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Unlike his famous cousin, the BlackStallion, the White Stallion was real. (Maybe.) Also unlike his cousin, the White Stallion is in a poem E.E. Cummings wrote after Buffalo Bill Cody died. I went to the Poetry Foundation to re-read the poem, and discovered one of those coincidences that make you take a deep breath and sit up straighter as you ponder the nature of reality. The foundation’s logo is Pegasus, the white stallion of ancient Greek mythology.

In Cummings’ poem, Buffalo Bill “used to/ride a watersmooth-silver stallion.” The stallion’s name was Columbus. An American Saddlebred, he belonged to and was trained by the legendary Black horse trainer Tom Bass, who sold him to Buffalo Bill for his show. Cummings' poem was published 30 years after the official closing of the Western frontier — no more vacant, free land — and four years after Buffalo Bill’s last public performance.

A horse lover,  Cody was also a crack shot from his job as a buffalo hunter for the Kansas Pacific Railway to provide meat for their workers — hence his nickname. The poet laments not only Cody’s death, but the closing of the frontier. For many people, the two signified the end of the Old West itself.

Born in 1846, William Frederic Cody grew up in nearby Kansas Territory. Isaac, his father, was an outspoken critic of slavery. While he was giving a speech, a local slaveholder stabbed him. He survived, but died three years before the Civil War began, when Bill was eleven. Despite his age, he found work for a freight hauling company. When the Civil War broke out, he and other young Yankee hotheads retaliated against local slave-owners by raiding their plantations and driving off their horses and cattle.

By the age of 15, he was riding for the Pony Express. Cody had promised his mother, a Quaker, that he wouldn’t join the Union army. But after her death, when Cody was 17, he enrolled.  A gregarious young man, Cody liked people — except for Confederates — and when he ran into Ned Buntline, the two became friends. A “dime novelist,” Buntline published a story about Cody’s life that was largely fiction. But he then published a novel, Buffalo Bill, King of the Borderland, that was so popular a New York City playwright turned Buntline’s novel into Buffalo Bill, a stage play. Cody liked what he saw and was shrewd enough to realize he could do something similar — and he could play himself.

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He assembled a cast of characters from the Old West and took his show on the road. At the height of its popularity, the show began with a parade through town, with riders from horse-culture groups from all over the world, dressed in their native costumes. One “character” was his friend Wild Bill Hickok — gambler, gun slinger, lawman — who didn’t enjoy acting. He spent more time hiding behind the scenery than in front of it, and left the show after shooting out a spotlight trained on him.

Another cast member was sharpshooter Annie Oakley, who wore a dress when she demonstrated her skills with pistol and rifle. Like Wild Bill, her name survived her death. A novel about her, AnnieGetYourGun, was followed by a movie of the same name.

Brash Calamity Jane was a storyteller and a trick rider. All three appeared in the hit TV series Deadwood. Sitting Bull, a tribal leader and medicine man who always appeared in a full-feathered war bonnet, was another crowd pleaser. But Cody’s show was so successful because of his suspenseful reenactments. Custer’s last stand. An attack on a stagecoach. A Pony Express rider in danger. Most of the stories recreated actual events, and audiences couldn’t get enough of these glimpses of a Wild West that had already receded into memory.

Cody’s shows drew sellout crowds all over the country, and were an even bigger hit in Continental Europe and Great Britain, where Queen Victoria invited him and his retinue to put on a private special performance for her and visiting royalty, like Kaiser Wilhelm of Germany.

Joan Fry is a lifelong horse lover and author of “Backyard Horsekeeping: The Only Guide You’ll Ever Need” (The Lyons Press, 2007). She can be reached via email at joan@joanfry.com.

This article originally appeared on The Pueblo Chieftain: Hoof Beats: The White Stallion, Part I

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Source: “AOL Entertainment”