March 22, 2016 
Imagine you’re out for a summer hack with your six besties. Naturally, you’re riding matching horses. And are dressed in your finest racing silks. Which also match. Because that’s just what horse lovin’ girls do on a weekend.
There you are, enjoying the weather, when you’re suddenly struck with an overwhelming hunger. FOR McDONALD’S. What do you do? What every hangry rider would in that circumstance—kick your horse into a gallop, jump a hedge or five, and make a beeline for the drive thru.
Oh, the things we’ll do for a McNugget!
That entirely plausible scenario is the basis for this 1984 McDonald’s commercial, which will go down in history as The Best McDonald’s commercial ever created. And the bar to which all future McDonald’s commercial should aspire.
Because this McDonald’s commercial? It doesn’t just feature horses and riders. It contains show jumping royalty Francie Steinwedell (in the red silks) and Hillary Kuhne Ridland (in pink), wife of chef d’equipe Robert Ridland.
It’s more moment in history than burger ad.
Ridland explains:
“It was a funny story because my sister Stacey [Kuhne Mercer] is in it—she did movies and commercials,” explains show jumping’s first lady. “Stacey rode, like I did, growing up, but she hadn’t ridden in a really long time. So when she got a call for the audition, she came and took a riding lesson with me.”
Still nervous, Mercer asked her sister to come to the audition. In they end they ended up being cast in the commercial. Steinwedell, a San Diego rider named Toni Strange (orange) and three more riders also made the cut. (Stacey, green.) Ridland, who was married to Larry Mayfield at the time, provided the horses.
“The director wanted eight chestnut horses with white socks. This is his vision,” recalls Ridland. “We said, ‘Well, we can give you eight chestnut horses with white polo wraps.’”
The shoot took place on the polo field at Will Rogers State Park in Brentwood, California. A hedge was brought in for the riders to jump. They spent the entire day trying to get all seven horses, most of which were Thoroughbreds unaccustomed to galloping in an open field, to jump the hedge at the same time—without losing their minds.
“My then-husband was there with a little bit of Ace. The director would say, ‘Give that horse some more of that stuff! He’s messing up my take,’” laughs Ridland.
“It was supposed to start in the morning, but at some point something was delayed. We were probably sitting in the saddle for three hours before the director said, ‘Okay, try it again!’”
The biggest issue, though, was the footing.
“Will Rogers didn’t want any big divots in their polo field,” explains Ridland. “So every time we’d jump the jump and kind of get run off with, the horses would tear up a big piece of grass and there’d be yelling, ‘Get their divots! Get their divots!’ Someone would go out and tamp it down.”
Ridland and the crew did not jump the white fence at the end of the field, in case you were wondering. They did go for a Big Mac after the shoot. Or, at least, they did in the entirely plausible version of events we’re imagining.
