Hollywood Movie Horses - How Many Horses Volunteered To Be In Movies ?

#thinklikeahorse #ItIsNeverTheHorsesFault The pitfalls and problems when using horses in movies.
Here is a comment from one of the extras from this.

Dick Burn
Publicly subscribed to you (3 years)
• 9 hours ago
Ok, so I'm a rope halter, barefoot rider these days and a great fan of Rick's channel but I have to confess I was one of the rider extras in this movie 'The Lighthorsemen' when it was filmed in South Australia back in the 1980's. If this interests you, please read on. If not, please just consider that the vast majority of riders at barns, riding schools and Pony Club all unknowingly have their techniques and training foundations in the British Horse Society, which is based on military Cavalry disciplines. These do not teach 'horsemanship' as part of the equation and the kind of hard hands and poor rider balance shown in this movie can be seen at every horse show and every riding academy today. Nothing has changed and I am constantly bewildered by the stress caused on horses by owners who persist with this failed system despite demonstrable benefits of NH and other more enlightened methods. You might tisk tisk at Hollywood but, aside from the extreme stunts, horses are being handled like this at barns and events in pursuit of ribbons and trophies in your neighborhood right now.

Anyway, this film is a recreation of the last mounted charge in modern military history in 1917 and we did weeks of training prior to filming on location to make sure we had the correct military formations down pat.
There were people from the humane society on set whenever the horses were being used and I never saw a single horse suffer anything more than a sprain or clip to the back of their front hooves from overextending the rear during a gallop, although the scenes with the falling horses were filmed separately from the main charge and other scenes. I know they hid rubber mats under the ground and prepared the soil to cushion the falls as much as possible, but the scenes were the horse plows in head first would have been impossible to control safely with any amount of precautions. I think the biggest uncontrolled risk to the horse falling on its' side would have been a trapped stirrup breaking a rib. Probably more risk minimization than absolute certainty of safety for the horse.
Your comments about some of the riding was spot on. Because they needed so many riders for the shoot, some were from cattle stations who used horses as part of their work. Others came from English style riding schools and had never ridden out of an arena. Can you guess which ones were using the reins for balance on the uneven ground and bouncing in the saddle?
The final charge scene had chase trucks with cameras sometimes behind and sometimes running parallel to out left. The ground was meticulously inspected for any debris or holes during each run. I have to say that participating in the final charge scenes was probably the most exhilarating experience of my life. No surround sound system can do justice to the 'awesomeness' of the ground shaking thunder of that many hooves at full gallop. It was like nature had unleashed some sort of primeval beast energy hidden inside each and every horse in its rawest and purest form as one being. Once we got moving, I'm still not sure if I was a rider or just a passenger that day, but I didn't want it to stop. You can be unaware of the kind of raging power that exists within the equine that kindly submits to letting you canter it around an arena each day until you've felt it.
If you have any other questions about the tack, etc, please comment.

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