Characters / Spirit: Riding Free

Lucky Prescott

Voiced by: Amber Frank (English), Melissa Gedeón (Latin American Spanish/seasons 1-2), Monserrat Aguilar (Latin American Spanish/season 3 onwards), Yui Makino (Japanese)

• Ambiguously Brown: Subverted. Lucky bears a striking resemblance to her mother, Milagro, who was a Hispanic woman from Mexico. However, Lucky has lighter skin than her mother had.
• Butt-Monkey: In contrast to her name, Lucky is prone to experiencing misfortunes. The pilot episode has Lucky forced to wear a formal puffy dress. At school, Lucky has trouble fitting into her desk because of her dress, and then when she finally sits down her dress flips up. She has more misfortunes occur to her in “Lucky and the Wayward Wedding”; accidentally losing a bouquet which gets eaten by Senor Carrots; getting her face smashed into the wedding cake; riding on a runaway carriage; and getting captured by her worst enemy, Butch LePray. Snips manages to outsmart her in many ways throughout “Lucky and the Escape Artist.”
• Cool Big Sis: Not only does she love her baby sister, Polly, very much, but she doesn't even show jealousy of her.
• Cute Clumsy Girl: Before heading off to the Palomino Bluffs boarding school, Lucky was quite clumsy and accident-prone. She's steadily growing out of it.
• Expository Hairstyle Change: In the first episode, Lucky's braid comes loose as she rides Spirit for the first time.
• Free-Range Children: Technically is the case with all three girls to varying degrees, hence the problems they get themselves in, but is mostly the case with Lucky, much to the dismay of her Aunt Cora.
• Missing Mom: Her mother died prior to the series. Later seasons reveal she was a famous acrobat, and that the danger of it may have contributed to her final fate.
• Only the Chosen May Ride: Lucky is the only one who can ride Spirit.
• Orphan's Plot Trinket: Lucky's boots, formerly her mother's, fit her so well that wearing other boots become an uncomfortable experience for her and turn her clumsiness up to eleven.
• Overly Long Name: Her full name is Fortuna Esperanza Navarro Prescott.
• Practically Different Generations: She's 14 by the time her baby half-sister, Polly, is born.
• Red Is Heroic: In the winter, Lucky wears a red coat and bean cap.
• Sweet Tooth: From what is seen in the show, Lucky takes second place behind Abigail when it comes to being fixated on candy. In "Lucky and the Resolutionary Fever", one of her New Year's resolutions is to try every piece of candy at the local candy shop. And when Aunt Cora moves out of the household in "Lucky and the Role Reversal", one of the first things that Lucky does is have ice cream for breakfast, lunch, and dinner.
• Tomboy and Girly Girl: Headstrong and adventurous Lucky to sweet and gentle Abigail as well as elegant but snooty Maricela.
• Tomboy with a Girly Streak: Lucky is headstrong, adventurous, and courageous. With her passion for horseback riding, she has a wild spirit. She normally wears casual clothes, but she’ll wear a dress on formal occasions, such as for the governor’s ball.
• Tragic Keepsake: Her mother's riding boots.

Spirit

• Badass and Child Duo: Spirit is the animal badass paired up with young city child Lucky.
• Cool Horse: Most mustangs never get out of paddocks once they're put in one. Spirit earned his freedom within two days, by saving several children's lives. And he only got caught in the first place because his idea of fun is racing steam-powered trains.
• Fantastic Racism: Like his father, he shows no inclination to interact with domestic horses... at first.
• From Stray to Pet: Spirit was born in the wild. After being captured by wranglers, he befriends Lucky and becomes her companion.
• Hypercompetent Sidekick: Lucky's main motivation to improve as a rider is that Spirit gets hurt when she makes mistakes.
  Lucky: (to Spirit, after complaining about a recent failure) Not you. You were perfect.
• Klingons Love Shakespeare: Despite himself, he loves the perks of being a domestic horse, like treats and cosy stables. Pru and Abigail Pet the Dog by altering a normal stall so that Spirit can leave or enter it whenever he wants.
• Legacy Character: This isn't the same horse from Spirit: Stallion of the Cimarron, but his son. Like his father, he earns the same name as him for more or less the same reasons.
• Lighter and Softer: While he still has his father's fierce independent personality, he also has some of his mother's gentleness and loyalty, which allows him to bond with Lucky.
• Moody Mount: Being a wild horse, Spirit will not allow anyone to ride his back. Lucky, who Spirit trusts most is the only human Spirit will allow to ride his back. Lucky always rides him bareback because Spirit doesn’t like wearing a saddle.
• Papa Wolf: As far as being fond of Lucky, Spirit is very protective of her, saving her from life-threatening situations (the speeding handcar incident, fighting off raging wolves, nearly falling off a cliff in “Lucky and the Treacherous Trail”...) or antagonists who oppose and/or actively try to harm her (Grayson, Butch Lepray, Smoke...).
• Strong Family Resemblance: With the only major difference being a white blaze, Spirit greatly resembles his father.

Pru Granger

Voiced by: Sydney Park (English), Fernanda Robles (Latin American Spanish), Umeka Shoji (Japanese)

• Birthday Hater: Every birthday, something calamitous has happened to her, her family or her friends or all of the above, so she refuses to celebrate as a result.
• Blue Is Heroic: Pru’s wardrobe consists of a blue shirt and blue jeans. She also wears a blue coat in the winter.
• Dark and Troubled Past: On her fifth birthday, she was taken to see a circus only to be publicly humiliated.
• Tomboy and Girly Girl: Headstrong Pru to angelic Abigail and elegant but snooty Maricela. Pru also has her stuck up horse, Chica Linda.
• Tomboy Ponytail: Pru always has her hair braided in a ponytail.

Abigail Stone

Voiced by: Bailey Gambertoglio (English), Andrea Arruti (Latin American Spanish)

• Big Beautiful Woman: Even for a child turned young adult, she's almost very plump and chubby yet very beautiful, cute and pretty.
• Butt-Monkey: Abigail has her share of bad luck.
  • During the Fiesta, she wins a huge jar of jelly beans. As she gets overexcited, she accidentally drops the jar and the jelly beans spill out.
  • Her younger brother, Snips, sometimes gets the best of her by pranking her.
  • Every year on April Fools day, Abigail gets caught in the middle of the war of pranks Pru has with her father. By always showing up at the wrong time, the joke is on her. Abigail tries setting up traps for Pru and father as pranks of her own, but she keeps getting caught in her own traps.
• Cool Big Sis: Lucky views Abigail as this to Snips, given that she never raises a hand to him despite all the trouble he causes.
• The Ditz: Abigail is sweet and naive.
• Nice Girl: Abigail is very kind, sweet and caring.
• Pink Means Feminine: Abigail wears something pink very often as a representation of her feminism. She is the most feminine girl of the PALS. She wears a light pink shirt as part of her main wardrobe. “Lucky and the Cowboy Next Door” has Abigail wear a darker pink shirt during the night festival. On formal occasions, she wears a pink dress.
• Sweet Tooth: Although all three girls do enjoy candy from time to time, it's implied heavily throughout the series that Abigail absolutely loves candy:
  • In "Lucky and the Resolutionary Fever", when Lucky tries to complete her resolution of trying every piece of candy at the local candy shop, Abigail is the one to suggest that they all help her, and displays what is implied to be a sugar rush throughout the rest of the episode as a result.
  • In "Lucky and the Role Reversal", Abigail comments on how cool it is that Lucky is having ice cream for breakfast, happily bringing up that she was allowed to do that once, but first had to have her tonsils removed, as well as referencing cotton candy as a highlight to seeing a play in person.
  • In the penultimate episode of the original series, "Lucky and the Endless Possibilities", after Aunt Cora, filling in for Mrs Prescott, assigns all the students to shadow adults throughout the town for a day, Abigail is the one to suggest working at the candy shop.

Maricela

Voiced by: Darcy Rose Byrnes (English), Annie Rojas (Latin American Spanish), Nanako Mori (Japanese)

• Character Development: Grows into a genuinely Nice Girl by the time Season 8 comes about, and has become a horse rider herself as of "Riding Academy''.
• Jerk with a Heart of Gold: Maricela is very snooty and self-centered. She often antagonizes the PALS. Yet, there are some occasions when she shows concern for them, such as in “Lucky and the Deadly Blizzard” when she worries that Lucky will not survive the blizzard alone. She also considers herself a friend to Lucky.
• Lovable Alpha Bitch: Post character development. She gets better and becomes nicer as the series progresses.
• Nice Girl: Eventually develops into this sort of person.
• Pink Means Feminine: Maricela wears a pink dress or skirt on some occasions.
• Proper Tights with a Skirt: As a prim and proper girl, Maricela always wears tights with every outfit she wears.

Jim Prescott

Voiced by: Nolan North (English), Oscar Flores (Latin American Spanish)

• Good Parents: Jim cares deeply for his daughter, Lucky, especially since she resembles his wife, Milagro, who he lost long ago. When Spirit is captured by Grayson, Jim tries to buy Spirit from him only for Grayson to refuse his handsome fee. After Grayson sells Spirit to the auction house, Jim tries to buy him at the auction. Even though he fails to buy Spirit, he doesn’t give up until Spirit and Lucky are back together. When his father decides to take Lucky back to the city, Jim stands up to him while refusing to have his only child taken away from him.
• Papa Wolf: Jim stands up to his own father when he threatens to take Lucky back to the city with him out of concern for her tomboy nature. His father pushes him around, but Jim puts his foot down for once.

Cora

Voiced by: Kari Wahlgren

Lucky's paternal aunt and Jim's sister

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• Big Beautiful Woman: Combined with Brawn Hilda. Aunt Cora may be very muscular, curvy and plump but also attractive, pretty and comely.
• Brawn Hilda: Combined with Big Beautiful Woman.
• Foolish Sibling, Responsible Sibling: The responsible to Jim's foolish. She's much more elegant and graceful and sets out to teach her niece how to be a proper young lady, while Jim is more adventurous and just lets Lucky do pretty much whatever she wants so long as she doesn't get hurt.
• Not So Above It All: As much as she criticizes Lucky for her obsession with wild animals, she ends up keeping a goose that was originally meant to be a family meal as a pet she names "Clancy".
• Prim and Proper Bun: Her main hairstyle.
• Proper Lady: Her defining character trait.
• Tomboy and Girly Girl: The prim and proper girly girl to Lucky's wild and spirited tomboy.

Milagro Prescott

Voiced by: Natalie Otano

Lucky's mother from San Jorge, who belonged to El Circo Dos Grillos.

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• Missing Mom: She died before Lucky was old enough to remember her. While the cause of her death has yet to be revealed, later seasons reveal that she was a circus acrobat, so the danger aspects of it could've contributed to her final fate.
• Runaway Fiancée: Milagro leaves her place of birth to escape her arranged marriage.
• Strong Family Resemblance: She looks like a darker version of her daughter.
• White Stallion: Her horse, Equuleus.

Harlan Grayson

Voiced by: James Patrick Stuart

• Enemy Mine / It's Personal: He grudgingly teams up with Lucky to rescue her father from Butch Le Pray because Butch murdered his father during a prison break a while back and he's been itching to get even ever since.
• Jerkass: He seems to delight in being as cruel as he can be while still technically being within the law.
• Karma Houdini: He's never shown getting any comeuppance for his jerkassery. Even when it seems like he might, it's always revealed that he's legally (though not morally) correct and thus not subject any punishment. And he makes sure rubs this in every single time.
• Would Hit A Woman: He doesn't pull his many punches when beating up Butch LePray.
• You Killed My Father: The reason for Grayson wanting revenge on Butch LePray: she killed his father while escaping prison.

Butch LePray

Voiced by: Katey Sagal

• But for Me, It Was Tuesday: When Grayson reminds Butch that she killed his father, she cannot remember Judge Grayson at all, then states "she can't remember everyone she killed that got in her way".
• Evil Redhead
• A Wolf in Sheep's Clothing: In her debut, Butch poses as a meek and bespectacled bookkeeper. She also befriends Lucky and acts supportive of her. When she realizes Lucky is a member of the Prescott family, who owns a railroad company, Butch sets a trap on her and reveals her true nature as a bandit.

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