Traveler is a horse

Horse

The horse is one of two extant subspecies of Equus ferus, or the wild horse. It is a single-hooved mammal belonging to the taxonomic family Equidae. The horse has evolved over the past 45 to 55 million years from a small multi-toed creature into the large, single-toed animal of today...

 who is the mascot of the University of Southern California

University of Southern California

The University of Southern California is a private, not-for-profit, nonsectarian, research university located in Los Angeles, California, United States. USC was founded in 1880, making it California's oldest private research university...

. He appears at all USC home football games in the Los Angeles Memorial Coliseum

Los Angeles Memorial Coliseum

The Los Angeles Memorial Coliseum is a large outdoor sports stadium in the University Park neighborhood of Los Angeles, California, at Exposition Park, that is home to the Pacific-12 Conference's University of Southern California Trojans football team...

 as well as many other outdoor events, including numerous Rose Parades. The current horse is Traveler VII. Although the Traveler web site describes Traveler as "pure white," most of the horses who have served as Traveler are actually gray horses

Gray (horse)

Gray or grey is a coat color of horses characterized by progressive silvering of the colored hairs of the coat. Most gray horses have black skin and dark eyes; unlike many depigmentation genes, gray does not affect skin or eye color Their adult hair coat is white, dappled, or white intermingled...

 whose hair coats have become completely white. (Truly white horses

White (horse)

White horses are born white and stay white throughout their life. White horses may have brown, blue, or hazel eyes. "True white" horses, especially those that carry one of the dominant white genes, are rare...

 are quite uncommon.) The rider, dressed as an idealized Trojan warrior

Troy

Troy was a city, both factual and legendary, located in northwest Anatolia in what is now Turkey, southeast of the Dardanelles and beside Mount Ida...

, is often mistaken for Tommy Trojan, the Trojan portrayed in USC's famous Trojan Shrine statue; however, the rider is unnamed and simply designated as a Trojan warrior with the horse as the official mascot.

The Coliseum

Until it was renovated in the 1990s, the Coliseum included an Olympic

1932 Summer Olympics

The 1932 Summer Olympics, officially known as the Games of the X Olympiad, was a major world wide multi-athletic event which was celebrated in 1932 in Los Angeles, California, United States. No other cities made a bid to host these Olympics. Held during the worldwide Great Depression, many nations...

 running track going around the football field. This proved to be useful for Traveler, who would gallop around the track after every USC score and pump up the crowd. Once the track was removed, Traveler still made its way around the field but had to move cautiously to avoid people on the sidelines. The horse had a minor collision with a person in 2000, and afterwards had human spotters running in front to clear a path.

Previous mascots

Before Traveler, USC used another mascot, a series of canines known as George Tirebiter

George Tirebiter

George Tirebiter was the unofficial mascot of the University of Southern California in the 1940s. When a stray dog was discovered by a group of USC students at Curry's Ice Cream parlor, one student remarked that the dog looked like a Navy V-12 student named George Kuhns...

. There had also been several previous, unofficial horse mascots making appearances on USC sidelines since 1927, but none were permanent. The idea for the current mascot began during the 1961 Rose Parade, when a USC events director spotted Richard Saukko and his white horse, Traveler, marching in the parade. After conferring with USC officials, the University persuaded Saukko to ride his horse during USC football games.

Introduction

Traveler was introduced in the Fall of 1961, during the USC Trojans football team's home opener at the Coliseum, against the Georgia Tech

Georgia Institute of Technology

The Georgia Institute of Technology is a public research university in Atlanta, Georgia, in the United States...

 Yellow Jackets

Georgia Tech Yellow Jackets

The Yellow Jackets is the name used for all of the intercollegiate athletic teams that play for the Georgia Institute of Technology in Atlanta, Georgia. The teams have also been nicknamed the Ramblin' Wreck, Engineers, Blacksmiths, and Golden Tornado. There are 8 men's and 7 women's teams that...

. To dress Saukko as a Trojan warrior, USC used its connections to the film industry

Film industry

The film industry consists of the technological and commercial institutions of filmmaking: i.e. film production companies, film studios, cinematography, film production, screenwriting, pre-production, post production, film festivals, distribution; and actors, film directors and other film crew...

 to procure the costume worn by Charlton Heston

Charlton Heston

Charlton Heston was an American actor of film, theatre and television. Heston is known for heroic roles in films such as The Ten Commandments, Ben-Hur for which he won the Academy Award for Best Actor, El Cid, and Planet of the Apes...

 in Ben Hur

Ben-Hur (1959 film)

Ben-Hur is a 1959 American epic film directed by William Wyler and starring Charlton Heston in the title role, the third film adaptation of Lew Wallace's 1880 novel Ben-Hur: A Tale of the Christ. The screenplay was written by Karl Tunberg, Gore Vidal, and Christopher Fry. The score was composed by...

two years earlier. The costume proved to be too heavy for extended use, so Saukko made his own leather uniform for the 1962 season and the same costume has been used since.

Riders

After Richard retired from riding the horse in 1988, the Saukko family continued to own the successive horses acting as Traveler until 2002. All subsequent riders have been USC alumni, and since Richard Saukko have been Cass Dabbs, Rick Oas, Tom Nolan, Ardeshir Radpour, Brent Dahlgren, and current riders Chuck O'Donnell, and Hector Aguilar.

Different horses

Several horses have been "Traveler" over the years, of breeds ranging from Tennessee Walking horses

Tennessee Walker

The Tennessee Walker or Tennessee Walking Horse is a breed of riding horse. The breed was originally bred in the Southern United States to carry the owners of plantations around their lands...

, to Arabian horse

Arabian horse

The Arabian or Arab horse is a breed of horse that originated on the Arabian Peninsula. With a distinctive head shape and high tail carriage, the Arabian is one of the most easily recognizable horse breeds in the world. It is also one of the oldest breeds, with archaeological evidence of horses...

s and some crossbred animals. The current mascot,Traveler VII, is purebred Andalusian horse

Andalusian horse

The Andalusian, also known as the Pure Spanish Horse or PRE , is a horse breed developed in the Iberian Peninsula. Its ancestors have been present on the Iberian Peninsula for thousands of years. The Andalusian has been recognized as an individual breed since the 15th century, and its conformation...

, owned by Joanne Asman.

External links

• Traveler's official site at USC.