The Hopkins Hoax
A Misleading Website and Unverifiable Photographs of Frank Hopkins in the Saddle
The Long Riders' Guild wishes to issue a public warning concerning the ownership, and mission, of the website known as frankhopkins.com
As the controversy surrounding the Old West imposter and equestrian charlatan known as Frank Hopkins continues to grow, many people are being misled into believing that the Hopkins website is owned and managed by fans of the mustang breed.
This is not the case !
The Frank Hopkins website is owned by John Fusco, the screenwriter of the forthcoming Disney movie entitled "Hidalgo."
Mr. Fusco launched the Hopkins website soon after representatives of the History Channel asked The Long Riders' Guild to verify the equestrian claims of Frank Hopkins. Because our investigation revealed that Hopkins was America's largest equestrian fraud, Mr. Fusco set into motion a series of efforts designed to camouflage Hopkins' lack of historical credibility.
His first move was to launch a website entitled frankhopkins.com on March 14th, 2003. The website was recorded as belonging to :
Waterhorse Films - John Fusco - Morristown,
Vermont.
Mr. Fusco was also listed as the administrative contact.
The Technical Contact was listed as :
Signal Advertising - David Zahn - Montpelier, Vermont.
The Frank Hopkins website lists many of the now debunked Hopkins myths. As the Long Riders' Guild investigation continued, even more damaging evidence was uncovered about Frank Hopkins. These embarrassing historical discoveries prompted Mr. Fusco to attempt to disguise his direct involvement in the Hopkins website. According to new ownership papers filed on May 10th, 2003, Mr. Fusco's name had been dropped. The new "owner" was now listed as "David Zahn," the same person who had previously been listed as the Technical Contact.
To further this deliberate misrepresentation, the Hopkins website also implied that it was being independently sponsored by two mustang conservation groups.
"On this site, sponsored by the Horse of the Americas registry and the Institute of Range and the American Mustang (IRAM), we will get a glimpse into Hopkins' life and career ...."
The Hopkins website states, "... Horse of Americas (registry) was dormant until Spanish Mustang aficionado and screenwriter John Fusco purchased it along with the last of the Horse of the Americas herd and sent both registry and horses to Texas where they joined the original Horse of the Americas herd at Karma Farms," wrote that webmaster.
Meanwhile, Mr. Fusco and the Frank Hopkins website continue to mislead the public into believing that Frank Hopkins was an underdog advocate of the mustang. Published on frankhopkins.com are articles and extracts from books about Hopkins' improbable achievements by various well-known writers. These are the very authors who, as The Long Riders' Guild has proved, did no primary research at all but simply believed - or deliberately promoted - Frank Hopkins. Once Hopkins' fantastic, albeit imaginary, feats had been written about a few times, the next generation of writers simply picked up the story and carried it on - still without making any effort at all to substantiate the tales!
The frankhopkins.com website even continues to publish an extract from Dr. Donald Worcester's 1986 book, The Spanish Mustang, in defiance of the fact that Dr. Worcester has publicly denounced Hopkins as being the author of an Old West fraud. Dr. Worcester told The Guild his own research into Hopkins had been limited to reading passages about Frank Hopkins in J. Frank Dobie's book, The Mustangs. The Long Riders' Guild provided Dr. Worcester, an Ida and Cecil Green Distinguished Emeritus at Texas Christian University, with copies of Frank Hopkins' unpublished manuscripts.
After reading the Hopkins material, Dr. Worcester issued an emphatic denunciation of the counterfeit cowboy. "I was fooled by Frank Hopkins," Worcester admitted, "because it was such a good story!"
Worcester went on to say, "
Worcester is one of 77 academics from five countries, ranging from the Curator of the Buffalo Bill Museum to the Sultan of Yemen, who have unanimously denounced Frank Hopkins as the world's greatest equestrian liar.
Furthermore, the public is being deceived in terms of two pieces of dubious photographic evidence which can be found on the frankhopkins website.
There is a campaign afoot to mislead the public into believing that Frank Hopkins was a bona fide equestrian hero. This is not the case. Hopkins is a historical fraud, the movie Hidalgo is pure fiction, and the frankhopkins.com website is a deliberate attempt to conceal the truth.