Horace Horsecollar star of the cartoon. In his earliest incarnation, Horace was presented as Mickey Mouse's four-legged plow horse. He could walk upright on his hind legs, at which time his forelegs became gloved hands; at other times, he got back down on all fours and reverted to form. Horace mostly played bit-parts in the 30+ films in which he appeared. Like Goofy in his early "Dippy Dawg" appearances, Horace's body seemed to be formed of rubber tubing. He and Clarabelle Cow had an uncanny ability to change from somewhat normal farmyard animals into anthropomorphized beings as necessary. After departing the Disney
Dippy (London) to be replaced by the long skeleton of a young blue whale, dubbed "Hope". The whale had been stranded on sandbanks at the mouth of Wexford Harbour, Ireland in March 1891. Its skeleton was acquired by the museum and had been displayed in the Large Mammals Hall (originally the New Whale Hall) since 1934. The work involved in removing Dippy and replacing it with the whale skeleton was documented in a BBC Television special, "Horizon: Dippy and the Whale", narrated by David Attenborough, which was first broadcast on BBC Two on 13 July 2017, the day before the whale skeleton