El Caballo Blanco TV advertisement

In the 1970s and ’80s, your hotel stay or theme-park visit could be given a magical touch with the addition of dancing white horses. El Caballo Blanco (The White Horse) was born when Perth businessman Ray Williams established an Andalusian stud. A Perth resort and a Sydney theme park followed: they were so successful that Williams briefly went international, running an El Caballo Blanco site in Disneyland.  

Both the Perth and the Sydney sites played heavily on the Spanish theme. In this 1985 TV ad for the theme park, we see its terracotta roofs, cream balustrades and palm trees – even the train has Ottoman arches. The ad's quick edits are cut to the lilting song (which has more than a passing nod to mid-70s earworm 'Una Paloma Blanca') and convincingly sell the park as a flamboyant alternative to traditional kids entertainments.   

El Caballo Blanco offered a go-kart track, a pet’s corner with kangaroos and peacocks, roller-skating, water slides and an antique carriage museum. But the main attraction was the daily equestrian shows. Modelled on Vienna’s Spanish Riding School, they featured Andalusians performing intricate dressage steps and spectacular standing leaps. However, unlike the Spanish Riding School with its almost monastic simplicity, the El Caballo Blanco riders and their steeds were decked out in a cabaret-style profusion of ruffles, plumes and sequins, like the shining golden rider in the ad. In the same clip, you can also see the richly bedecked senoritas who rode behind the saddle in parades.  

Like so many theme parks, the Sydney site ended its life in flames after a long period of abandonment. The Perth resort briefly revived its shows in the mid-2000s, but these days The White Horse dances no longer.