Manion (Grant Withers) allows a killer horse to roam free and ruin valuable horses on nearby ranches. His plan is to "shakedown' the ranchers for protection. Roy (Roy Rogers) tracks down the bad guys with help from a young lad.
Wilbur Hoolihan (Lou Costello) accidentally kills a hack horse owned by King O'Hara (Cecil Kellaway) and his daughter, Princess (Patsy O'Connor) by feeding it candy. In hopes of raising enough money to replace it, he and his friend Grover Mockridge (Bud Abbott) visit a gambling parlor. They are successful in raising the money, but before they can purchase a new horse, a con man swindles Wilbur out of his cash. They are informed by some touts that an old horse is available for nothing at one of the tracks. They visit the track and mistakenly take the wrong horse, a champion by the name of Tea Biscuit. They present the horse to O'Hara as a replacement for his deceased horse.
Ken McLaughlin's (Roddy McDowall) mare Flicka gives birth to an all-white colt that, unknown to Ken's dad, Rob (Preston Foster), was actually sired by a neighboring rancher's thoroughbred racehorse, Appalachia, rather than Rob's own stallion, Banner. Ken's mother, Nell (Rita Johnson), names the colt Thunderhead after the billowing white clouds she sees overhead. Ken trains Thunderhead as a race horse, but the colt suffers an injury during his first race, ending his racing career.
An old man has three sons: the elder two are considered fairly smart, while the youngest, Ivan, is considered an idiot. One day the father sends the three to find out who's been taking the hay in their fields at night. The elder brothers decide to lie hidden in a haystack, where they promptly fall asleep. Ivan, meanwhile, sits beside a birch tree and plays on his recorder. Suddenly, he sees a magnificent horse come flying out of the sky. Ivan grabs her mane and holds on as the horse tries to shake him off. Finally, the horse begs him to let her go and in return gives him two beautiful black male horses and a little humpbacked horse (Konyok-gorbunok) to be his companion.
Drifting and down on his luck cowboy Ted Daniels captures a beautiful mustang, names her Bess and teaches her a variety of tricks. Fate turns on him when he rides Bess into town where she causes expensive damage to motor vehicles as Ted drinks in a bar. Ted thinks his luck will change by winning a large prize in a local rodeo, but the unscrupulous carnival owner, who wants Bess to appear in his show, has one of his stooges cover the horns of the steer Ted is to wrestle with slippery oil breaking Ted's leg in the process.
In the last decade of the 19th century, chemist David Palmer returns to Oxford, Indiana, after living in Chicago for a few years. The return is brought on by his upcoming marriage to school teacher Ruth Treadwell.
"Philip (Mark Lester) is a troubled autistic 10-year-old boy who has been fleeing the confines of his family's home since babyhood. Like some wild animal, Philip refuses to be penned up. Even more frustrating for his devoted mother and more irritable father, Philip has refused to speak since the age of three. Run Wild, Run Free (1969), directed by Richard C. Sarafian, is occasionally graced with experimental, art film touches, as when, at one point the internal thoughts of Philip's mother (Sylvia Syms) describing her fatigue and inability to love her son can be heard as voice-over as they drive to a therapist appointment.