This article first appeared in the October 2021 digital edition of Equestrian Life. To see what's in the current issue, click here.

Racing Stripes' was produced by Warner Bros in 2005.

© RGR Collection/Alamy Stock Photo

A zebra earns its ‘Racing Stripes’

By Suzy Jarratt

A battling outsider overcomes diversity to triumph in a race – not the most original of movie plots, but Racing Stripes is different… its hero is a talking zebra.

With a budget of $30 million, the producers of Racing Stripes (Warner Bros 2005) cast a handful of on-camera humans working on location in South Africa alongside a variety of animals. These were later voiced in distant recording studios by actors such as Dustin Hoffman, Whoopi Goldberg, Snoop Dog and Frankie Muniz.

Directed by Frederik Du Chau, a young Belgian filmmaker, the complex process of animation and animatronics was undertaken by over 150 people; a team of 40, comprising many Australians, worked with the different creatures.

There were pelican, goat, dog, sheep, and rooster handlers, thoroughbred and pony wranglers, liberty horse and zebra trainers, grooms, stablehands and animal coordinators, all helping bring to life the story of a zebra, accidentally abandoned as a foal by a travelling circus, who longs to be a racehorse. Rescued and taken to a farm belonging to widower Nolan Walsh (Bruce Greenwood), he grows up surrounded by barnyard animals. Named ‘Stripes’, he finds an ally in Nolan’s 14-year-old daughter, Channing (Hayden Panettiere), who longs to be a jockey...

Read the full article in the October 2021 issue of Equestrian Life magazine here.