C. W. Anderson's
Who Taught Billy To Ride?
All the plot additions pleased the C. W. Anderson Estate so well that only one character was enhanced; Mrs. Wood thought Kate should be more impressed by Billy. The other personalities in the script remained the same year after year. Billy’s father was a pleasant individual, but completely unfamiliar with horses, while Billy’s mother had horses all her life. Billy’s grandfather, who had been an Olympic Jumper Gold Medalist, still had Billy's mother’s old pony.
This explains how Billy could sit Blaze so well from that very first day. For this reason, it was a marvel when only last year we discovered that the name, Tad Coffin (which we had heard many times in relation to saddles for our horse show scene) actually belonged to a timeless individual, living here in Virginia. In fact, Mr. Coffin is an Olympic Gold Medalist for Hunter Jumper just like the character of Billy’s grandfather written more than a decade ago.
And in the script Billy’s grandfather not only taught Billy to ride, but reminded him to take good care of his saddle!
After reading the script and researching the project, Tad and Kelly Coffin offered to help with the movie in any way they could. We were so delighted that Mr. Coffin had extensive experience performing before the camera, and we could not hope for anything better than for him to be Billy’s grandfather. Of course, the only thing we could think to do was ask - would he be willing to play the part of Grandfather? His answer was an unequivocal, "YES!".
So, rest assured that every scene where horses are being utilized, Mr. Coffin will be there helping make Billy & Blaze the best it can be and the truest to the spirit of adventure C. W. Anderson built into these graphite dreams for children.
You can learn more about Mr. Tad Coffin at his website, Tad Coffin Performance Saddles. http://www.tadcoffinsaddles.com/
To see his complete Olympic ride for the Gold: