Champion the Wonder Horse series; he was one of several horses that Autry rode in that production. After learning about the horse through stunt man and movie horse wrangler Tracey Layne, Autry paid $75 for the original Champion, whose sire was a Morgan trotting horse from Ardmore, Oklahoma. Trained to perform numerous tricks, Champion could untie knots, fall, roll over and play dead, come at Autry's whistle, bow, and shake his head yes and no. In one film he pushes Autry into the arms of his leading lady June Storey. By 1939 his reported worth was $25,000. The original Champion died in 1943, at
Gene Autry's Melody Ranch on tape for syndication ..." Beginning in the late 1990s, in cooperation with the Autry Qualified Trust and The Autry Foundation, Gene Autry's movies were fully restored and issued on DVDs by Image Entertainment as the Gene Autry Collection series. Offered through the Autry Museum of the American West, the DVD for each film includes excerpts from or else a complete "Melody Ranch" radio show. Typically the audio and video quality is excellent. For example, the "Gaucho Serenade" DVD includes excerpts from the "Melody Ranch" show of June 2, 1940, location not stated, - Opening Theme: "Back in the Saddle