The White Horses


The White Horses is a 1965 television series co-produced by RTV Ljubljana of Yugoslavia and German TV.

Plotline

The story follows the adventures of a teenage girl Julia who leaves Belgrade to spend a holiday on a stud farm run by her Uncle Dimitri, where with the help of head groom Hugo, white Lipizzaner horses are raised.
In the first episode, stallion Boris is stolen by gypsies who dye his white coat brown so that no one will recognise him. Julia and Hugo set off to find Boris and upon his recovery an affinity is formed between girl and horse.

Transmission

The series, called Počitnice v Lipici in Slovenian and Ferien in Lipizza in German, comprised thirteen 25-minute black and white episodes.
A dubbed version was broadcast in the United Kingdom from 1968, and repeated for many years afterwards. The dubbed soundtracks were long thought lost, but audio tapes of twelve of the thirteen episodes have been located.

Theme song

The theme song to the German version was played by Ivo Robić.
The UK theme song - written by Michael Carr and Ben Nisbet and later back dubbed onto all versions, was simply titled "White Horses", and credited to "Jacky" - was sung by Irish-born Jackie Lee. It became a top 10 hit in the UK charts in April 1968. The book The Penguin Television Companion claimed it to be the best television theme in history. It has been copied and used many times since, including: