Serrano

The Huntington Beach Independant
Chris Epting
June 6, 2011

A horse is a horse, of course, of course/ and no one can talk to a horse, of course/ that is, of course, unless the horse is the famous … Serrano.
For decades, he mystified and thrilled audiences, displaying psychic feats of unparalleled ability. Billed variously as "The World's Best Educated Horse" and "The Psychic Horse with the College Education," the equine known as Serrano was a worldwide legend through the 1940s and '50s, guessing ages, unscrambling words, finding objects under boxes and picking objects by color.
Born along the banks of the Santa Ana River in the 1940s, Serrano was quite the celebrity back then. He appeared on the TV show "You Asked for It" and continuously toured county and state fairs all over the country, making as much as $1,000 a day from people who thought they could stump him. A popular contest was to ask an audience member to step forward and concentrate hard on his own age. Then, using numbered blocks, the great Serrano would choose the two that matched the participant's age.

Owned by local farmer and horseman Clint Brush, Serrano wound up becoming a popular feature act at Knott's Berry Farm, performing there throughout the 1950s and '60s, back when Knott's featured other charming attractions such as the organ grinder, the seal pool, the bee exhibit, glow-in-the-dark rocks and the glow-in-the-dark Jesus from the Church of Reflections.
But some of you might remember that Serrano lived right here in Huntington Beach, at the Brush barn at Beach Boulevard and Heil Avenue.
Craig Hoxie, a Huntington Beach crime scene investigator who grew up in the area, remembers meeting Serrano at Knott's.
"When I was about 7, in the late 1960s, they picked me out of the crowd for Serrano to guess my age," he said. "And he did it! He counted off my age correctly by scratching his hoof into the dirt. I didn't see my dad signal my age. It was a great show and I'm still not sure how he did it.
"My brother used to deliver papers to the Brush home in the early '70s and he remembers seeing Serrano there all the time."
Rudy Gartner, an HB traffic parking control officer, also remembers stopping by to see Serrano.
"They had a big sign on the barn that advertised 'Serrano — The World's Most Educated Horse,'" he said. "As I remember, the property stretched over about to where Norms Restaurant is today."