The Making of a Bronco
Local celebrity, Hummer, seen here on the right, highlighted a recent Ford Bronco commercial through the training of The Dalles’ Linda Pishion of Brown’s Creek. She and her husband Amos, turns out, have had quite a career in film and commercials during the past decade. Ricky, the white Arabian, has also seen a lot of action.
Pishions Love of Horses, Animals translates to the Big Screen
Rearing to go.
By Tom Peterson
When someone sends you a photo of a horse sitting on a bean bag chair, you think, what?
That someone was Linda Pishion on Brown’s Creek Road, and it begged the question?
What’s that horse all about?
“He was in a Bronco commercial,” she said.
Bronco commercial? “You mean Ford Bronco,” I asked.
“Yeah for the new Ford Bronco. That’s Hummer rearing up.”
Huh?, I said.
Yeah, that horse was in the commercial.
A little prodding and Linda came clean on a 10-year career in show business that has crossed paths with Laura Dern, Reese Witherspoon, Microsoft Ceo Kevin Turner and Denver Broncos epic Linebacker Von Miller.
I met Linda and her husband Amos last week.
They were resting in lawn chairs near the riding barn on their spread. Three Arabians- Hummer, Ricky and Jetta, were tied up in the shade. All groomed.
It had been a busy morning.
They had found a screech owl the day before with an eye injury and had taken it to the Rowena Wildlife Clinic.
Screech Owl found by the Pishions.
“We fed it some raw chicken,” Linda said, holding a horse comb. “It laid an egg this morning.”
“Hopefully, they can figure out what is going on with that eye,” she said.
If you have not figured it out, Linda and Amos tend to be fond of animals - all kinds.
They found a great horned owl injured in Dufur some years back and nursed it back to health.
When they released it back to the wild, “It flew to a fence post and landed. It looked back at us. Then it flew to the middle of a field and looked back again and then flew off.”
She said it was a striking moment, both she and Amos and the owl feeling that sense of separation anxiety.
It’s just one story in a cannon that communicates a greater connection to animals. Linda grew up on 13th Street in The Dalles with domesticated skunks in her home, glands included. There was also an alligator. To this day, she can still catch a rattlesnake in the pasture by grasping the head.
“She’ll come riding in with one wrapped around her arm,” Amos said.
Linda Pishion works with Ricky on the left and Hummer on the Right in her riding barn on Browns Creek Road.
Amos and Linda married 51 years ago. Both are 74. They’re seasoned by the sun and absolutely engaged with their animals as well as each other.
They spend a lot of time together, sleeping in the horse trailer near film sets or photoshoots. Like all good cowpeople, they’re used to camping out. The trailer is kind of plush compared to some horseback trips. When they were 32-years-old, the couple rode with relatives from Chenowith to Mount Jefferson and back over 16 days.
“It didn’t rain the day we left and the day we got back,” Linda said. “The rest was pretty drizzly. We slept on the ground. There was lighting. It rained so hard that after we cooked dinner we put the pots out to let the rain wash them out. But we made it.”
But how do you go from there to brushing arms with Reese Witherspoon?
Dee Van Gilder on Jetta, an orphan that Linda eventually raised.
Friends, of course.
Dee Van Gilder of Wasco and Linda go way back. And Dee runs Van Gilder Arabians and had done work with Talented Animals, which provides animals to photo and film productions.
Dee affectionately calls Linda Rattlesnake Annie, noting that the Arabian Jetta was an orphan of hers and Linda raised it from a colt.
So about 10 years ago, Dee was unavailable to provide a horse to a photoshoot in Portland and she suggested Linda Pishion be contacted.
Lauren Henry of Talented Animals then booked Pishion for the photoshoot for a Coldwater Creek catalog.
At age 64, the Pishions were walking into a whole new career.
“It was a nice day in August,” Amos said, noting the shoot was of their white Arabian Ricky in a snowy winter scene on a 90 degree day.
At the shoot, Linda said Lauren looked familiar to her. They soon discovered that they had done drill team with horses through the American Legion in The Dalles for the Fort Dalles Rodeo decades earlier. They became fast friends.
So, a year later, Linda and Amos, were back in Portland with Super Bowl MVP Linebacker Von Miller of the Denver Broncos. They were shooting an Addidas commercial at the Veteran’s Memorial Coliseum.
“A couple of months later, Amos and Linda took Ricky to Redmond, Wash., to shoot a training video for Microsoft. CEO Kevin Turner mounted Ricky for the shoot and lip-synced Les Miserables lyrics.
Microsoft’s Kevin Turner lip-synced some Les Miserables atop the Pishion’s white Arabian gelding Ricky for a training video.
“He was in tails, a top hat, boots,” Linda said. Turner took a look at Ricky and the step stool they brought for him to mount, and turned to the Pishions and asked, “do you have a step ladder?”
Their next gig came in November of 2013, a new film about the Pacific Crest Trail.
The Pishons found themselves at Timothy Lake near Mount Hood with Ricky in a scene of Wild with Resse Witherspoon.
“She was really friendly,” Linda said. “Seemed to be a nice person.”
And they were all freezing.
Reese Witherspoon
They remained in the rain and wind until midnight, getting the shot of Ricky with a US Forrest Ranger and then Reese.
“Ricky had his own tent, and heater. They would not even let him walk a half-mile back to our trailer. Instead, they loaded Ricky in a trailer and drove him down to the Pishon’s trailer.
No unnecessary risks for the talent.
“Jeez, back home we ride in the dark,” Linda said.
Linda even got Hew Hillis of Oregon Equipment in on the act.
Laura Dern had a riding scene in Wild, and Pishion suggested Hillis and his gentle horse, Rookie.
Hillis trailered the horse to Vancouver, Wash. He said he was riding the horse when Dern in an SUV pulled up and said, ‘I am looking for a man on a horse.’
“I said, I think this is a horse,” Hew told her.
Hew Hillis and Rookie
“Rookie did not make it in the film,” Hew said. “He was too mellow.”
Dern was scared to ride him.
“The horse realized she was scared, and he knew it. So he wouldn’t move or walk.”
And Dern ended up on another horse.
Some months later, Linda, Amos and Ricky found themselves at Portland Meadows for an episode of the TV Series The Librarians called Stealing of Fortune. And this time Amos got a spotlight as well.
Amos Pishion
In the plot, the prize racehorse is stolen before the start of the race, and the longshot - the Pishion’s white mare Steelie in this case - wins the race.
When casting got a look at Amos and his long beard, they pegged him for a goon.
And they put him in the episode stealing the prize horse with friend Roland Sonneberg.
“It was natural,” Amos said. He just made a serious look, like a guy that could get caught stealing a million-dollar horse.
Good Friend Lauren Henry with Eve the cow in First Cow.
It would not be Amos’ last role. He also ended up as a trapper in First Cow.
In 2019, Linda put a team of six horses to run together for Oprah Winfrey’s Waterman.
The movie, about a boy seeking a mystic waterman to cure his mother’s fatal illness, is set to be released on May 7. Linda and Amos own five horses and board another 7 - so they can pull off a herd when needed - but it takes months of training.
And their latest gig was a commercial for the new Ford Bronco that was released earlier this year.
Hummer got the spotlight as Linda had him racing up a hill on Mt. Baker and then rearing up.
Amos, a former aluminum plant worker, agreed that he and Linda were pretty tight and the showbiz had brought them closer together. “We have to be, to get more than 51 years in” (of marriage).
“You never think about what you do” Linda said after reflecting on her journey with Amos and her horses. “It was all totally unexpected. There’s been a lot of happiness. The Big Guy has his plan and thank goodness we’re in it.”
Side Note: Pishion and Hillis will be in action at The Fort Dalles Rider Club on May 15th when the Club holds its Amazing Horse Affair and Tack Show.
