Billy Crystal’s “City Slickers” Horse

Here’s a movie clip to watch. It’s the “what was your best/worst day” scene from “City Slickers.” As you enjoy the scene, keep your eye on Billy Crystal’s horse. He’s riding the middle one, the black with a blaze.

That horse’s name is Beechnut. Billy Crystal took him home from the set of the 1991 film. In mid-November, about a week before this writing, Beechnut had to be put to sleep at the age of 27 due to illness.

Although Crystal hasn’t come out and said so, I do believe that Beechnut’s passing may have been one of Crystal’s real-life worst days.

Soon after filming “City Slickers” (1991), Crystal brought Beechnut home from the set. “It was an on-location romance,” Crystal has been quoted as saying in news reports.

Still, Crystal being Crystal, the jokes continued. Crystal rode Beechnut onto the stage when he hosted the 1991 Academy Awards telecast.

Plus, I remember a late-night talk show appearance several years later in which Crystal mentioned that, yes, he’d kept the horse from “City Slickers” and that he boarded him in the Los Angeles area at a stable where other busy movie stars kept their horses.

Almost in the next breath, Crystal had joked about the horses hanging out at the stable and commiserating about their busy owners, about how they don’t write or call, as if the horses were retirees complaining about neglectful children.

But had Beechnut and Crystal not enjoyed a good relationship, Crystal wouldn’t have been able to have said that Beechnut would “always put his head on his shoulder.”

RIP, Beechnut. Our condolences, Mr. Crystal.

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Tags: Beechnut, Billy Crystal, City Slickers