MONTY ROBERTS GOES OVER THE EDGE
by John Dolan
It’s not that I ever had any doubts that Monty Roberts was a power-hungry, money-hungry, publicity-crazed fool. But after reading author Dominick Dunne’s column in Vanity Fair magazine (Sept. 02 issue), I am now convinced that Monty is not only demented, he’s deserving of an immediate lobotomy.
Although he never mentions Monty Roberts by name as his mysterious caller, Dunne offers enough clues to give a blind man X-ray vision: horseman from Salinas, takes tea with the Queen of England, trained James Dean to portray a Salinas boy for one of the actor’s movies, the alleged inspiration for the book and film, The Horse Whisperer (all right out of Monty’s own memoir with many tales proven to be lies ). So let me put it in print right here: The identity of Dominick Dunne’s mysterious source is none other than Monty “The Man Who Listens to Horses” Roberts, horse’s ass and liar extraordinare.
Remember the story about U.S. Rep. Gary Condit and the missing Washington D.C. intern, Chandra Levy, who Condit was messing around with? It got quite a bit of press for quite some time. Dunne discusses a theory he had about her disappearance prior to the discovery of her remains last May and the fact that he got some rather strange phone calls from the self-proclaimed “horse whisperer” himself. It seems Monty had his own theories about the girl’s disappearance, or rather, he had first-hand knowledge, so he said. Monty told Dunne that a high-class Arab pimp told him he saw Levy in a drugged state and being abducted by five men in Washington D.C. She was supposedly placed on a Middle Eastern airplane and, Monty suggested, dumped into the ocean.
Dunne did what he said was the proper thing with the information – he investigated. And when he asked Monty the name of the high-class Arab pimp, Monty’s memory suddenly went bust, just like the investigation.
Dunne believes he was set up and that maybe the horse trainer was “hoodwinked in his role as messenger”. Possibly, but more likely is that it was Monty doing the hoodwinking – anything for publicity, anyway he can get it. How truly pathetic that Monty Roberts would feel the need to insinuate himself in that very sad, very public event that saw the death of a girl and the decline of a congressman.
August 2002