STALLION OF A DREAM

Jen Miller

Director(s): Jen Miller & Sophie Pegrum-- Horsefly Films Rare Equine Trust

STALLION OF A DREAM: California and the Camarillo White Horse is the quintessential California story. From the 19th Century, Californians have sought a slicker means of locomotion, but before lowriders, hotrods and freeways, California was the birthplace of an endangered rare horse breed that set it apart: The Camarillo White Horse. For a century these horses have embodied the California dream to spectators worldwide, evoking California’s storied past of immigration and empire-building and illuminating shifting attitudes on race, social status and personal identity. Into the cauldron of desire, possibility and the alchemy of transformation that was early California, came the aristocratic Spanish colonists known as the Californios, among them the Camarillo family. In this early California landscape the horse was central to traditions and culture. More than a conveyance or a tool for work— the horse was, like the car a century later, a deep reflection and expression of individuality. With their arrival in California on the Hijar expedition in 1834 aboard a ship that may or may not have held Napoleon Bonaparte’s doom within its planks, the Camarillo family transformed wild California. Adolfo Camarillo's embrace of the vanguard mirrored California's own spirited ethos reflected in our state motto “Eureka!”, meaning “I have found it!” But what is it Californians have found? Gold? The next freeway exit? A dreamer’s Paradise? For the Camarillos, the dream began with a horse, for in 1921, Adolfo created a new breed of horse: The Camarillo White Horse. Adolfo, with his stallion Sultan, embarked on an equine journey that would become more than a personal identity or brand. The White Horse would become his family legacy; their gift to California and the world. Adolfo and Sultan ignited a spark in spectators everywhere, embodying all that was good in the collective dream of California. Today these living vessels of history battle time itself. How can these endangered horses survive the next decade, let alone the next century? STALLION OF A DREAM searches for answers.