Horse From Woodstock To Join Johnny Depp In New 'Lone Ranger' Movie
WOODSTOCK, Ill. (CBS) -- A 5-year-old from suburban Woodstock is headed to Hollywood to co-star in a new movie with Johnny Depp.
As WBBM Newsradio 780's Regine Schlesinger reports, this newest Hollywood star is a horse.
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The horse's name is Phoebe. She will be one of five horses playing the role of Silver in a new movie version of the Lone Ranger.
Phoebe was the first pure white thoroughbred born in Illinois. She was raised on the Valley View Acres horse farm in Woodstock, and trained at Arlington Park and Hawthorne Racecourse.
Amber Bauman, who raised Phoebe from a foal, says the horse thinks she is human and knows that she is special.
"At 2 years old, Phoebe went for saddle training," Bauman said. "At 3 years old, she went for racetrack training. She trained at Arlington Park Racetrack and Hawthorne Racecourse. The fact that she is pure white spooked the other race horses. We decided that Phoebe was too slow for the racetrack, so we turned her into a show horse. Her first and only event was at the Barrington Horse Trial."
Bauman described Phoebe as an "eventer" who was entered in triathlon competition that includes dressage, stadium jumping, and cross country.
Phoebe is now owned by Silver Bullet Productions Inc., which is owned by Walt Disney Pictures.
The new movie, which is being directed by Gore Verbinski, will star Armand Hammer – the great grandson of the oil tycoon who shares his name – as the Lone Ranger, and Johnny Depp as his partner, Tonto. The release date is Dec. 21, 2012.
The Lone Ranger began as a radio show in 1933. It later became a television show from 1949 to 1957, starring Clayton Moore as the masked hero and Jay Silverheels as Tonto.
The Sun-Times Media Wire contributed to this report.
