We eagerly await horse movies and then so disappointed on the lack of accuracy and yes, sometimes stupid things that happen! Besides the obvious morphing of National Velvet’s piebald Pie, into a blaze faced chestnut, what have you all seen?
I used to sit and watch a couple of soap operas with an elderly neighbor and of course in each of those there is the rich family with stables and the rouge, handsome stable boy who sleeps on a cot in the tack room! In that tack room are bridles hanging upside down from the bit, groom carrying a so totally new saddle, stirrups dangling as he untacks for rich daughter who is wearing rubber boots. If a stable scene is shown there is always a stack of hay/straw, the one stall is open with pieces of tack hanging well inreach of teeth, and straw or hay spread all over the floors.
In more than one movie or program the inevitable sick horse is laying in an open area of the barn with a blanket thrown across him. Like even a sick horse would not move around to throw blanket off but also get up and leave!
Lots out there, lets here them and have a good laugh!
The Electric Horseman, a truly awful early 80s movie with Redford and Fond? It was all ridiculous and preposterous, but the ending, where he turns a multiple million dollar race horse loose to be wild 'n free takes it to a new level.
The fact that much is made of Redford having farrier tools and taking the horse’s shoes off before turning him loose, and that in the slow mo, romantic scene of the horse running free you can clearly see all four shoes.
Seabiscuit was a wonderful movie in many ways, but there’s a scene of the vet coming out of the horse’s stall carrying a black doctor’s page while the trainer, groom, etc are seated on the bench out side. Really? Lots of vets I know woud go into a stall alone to do an exam, without anyone to hold the horse, particularly a notoriously rank stud colt. And lots of trainers wouldn’t have a problem with it.
There’s also a scene when Seabiscuit and Red are laying up at the ranch, and Tobey McGuire is wrapping the wrong leg - right front instead of left.
Not a movie, but a book I just read: A mare was in labor 4 hours before the vet arrived and pulled the foal and both survived!! Also a foundered mare with coffin bone protruding through the bottom of the hoof–sound in two months!
I get annoyed at how noisy movie horses are. Constantly neighing, nickering, etc., while seemingly just standing there with bored expressions. They must be ventriloquists!
Horse collars are always hung upside down. Standard bales of hay are always lifted like sofas instead of grasping the ties and rolling them over the knee. No horse or any other livestock ever relieves itself on camera.
Bands of wild horses being rounded up are almost always all the same age - no youngsters. Same way with herds of cattle, etc.
Oregon Trail emigrants riding in the wagons is a common sight - except on the actual trail, most of the travelers walked. The unsprung trail wagon (NOT a Conestoga, which was only used on fairly good roads and level terrain) was a butt-killer. The kids would be out picking up buffalo chips as they walked. The teams would be weary enough without hauling the entire family every step.
In science fiction shows, cloned horses are born as adults and come with tack (Earth Two). They are also born broke.
Shoes shining in the sun on the horses the Indians are riding in old-time Westerns.
Ditto on samurai horses in Japanese historical epics; neither group used steel, nailed-on shoes. Samurai riding 100% OTTB’s, (don’t they just WISH!) when in reality their horses resembled Mongolian ponies and were about 13.2.
Everyone, regardless of nationality, wrenching the bit so bad horses stop with their heads inverted and their mouths wide open in pain; obvious non-rider actors or directors who think it looks “dramatic.”
The ridiculous constant noises horses ONLY EVER make in the movies! :rolleyes:
And my personal favorite, when they go and SWITCH horses (or dogs) and we’re not supposed to NOTICE!
Lol@Copper. I had to chuckle when I read your remarks about the blankets. I met an old time Horseman from England who grew up w/farming draft horses. When I came to his stables late @ night one evening all of the horses had their so called robes on. The horses were sleeping wearing a large wool blanket (cooler style) no straps or strings to hold them in place ? I was nothing short of amazed ! Apparently they had been dressed like this for the nite since they were young. I know my horse would of had the blanket balled up, urine soaked & buried under shavings. Anyways I was amazed & intrigued. Never would have believed it had I not seen it for myself.
The entire movie Dreamer? Like slinging the horse three feet off the ground.
I noticed a new one (to me) recently. There are obviously multiple Travellers used in the movie Gettysburg.
Agree on the constant nickering.
“No horse or any other livestock ever relieves itself on camera.”
Oh, I know, BUT… does anyone else who lived back when rocks were young remember a Carol Burnett Show episode where she was doing a spoof of “Oklahoma,” I think, and the horse standing behind her pooped? She collapsed laughing, and then said, “I’m so glad he felt free to critique the performance” or something like that. It was so funny.
While I do notice errors they don’t bother me if I like the film overall. The Black Stallion was on last night, I have the dvd, but I watched it on tv again because I love that movie. The beach scenes still take my breath away and the ending of the race with the flashbacks to galloping on the beach are simply beyond words. Who of us wouldn’t want to be that boy? One with his horse, arms out stretched as though they were flying.
I don’t care for western type horse movies, like the electric horseman or the horse whisperer. Wait, maybe it’s Robert Redford that I don’t like. Is this what’s called an epiphany? 
[QUOTE=Mango20;7884735]
I get annoyed at how noisy movie horses are. Constantly neighing, nickering, etc., while seemingly just standing there with bored expressions. They must be ventriloquists![/QUOTE]
It’s not just movies - last night I was watching Alaska: The Last Frontier (a reality show) with my SO and was so distracted by the horse noises that were so obviously dubbed in. A mare pushes past someone, trotting between them and the fence, and the noises they added sounded like two studs fighting. I guess they feel the need to make perfectly normal situations, like a horse with piggish manners in turnout, sound more scary and dangerous? I feel the constant need to explain to my SO “That horse is not making that sound.”
[QUOTE=copper1;7884686]
Besides the obvious morphing of National Velvet’s piebald Pie, into a blaze faced chestnut, what have you all seen? [/QUOTE]
The filmmakers actually covered that. Listen carefully in the scene where the horse first jumps the hedge and Velvet steps in front of him. The gelding’s original owner calls him “a pirate” and Velvet says she would call him just “the pie.”
I give the movie makers a pass on some of this stuff. Like the use of that chestnut in NV instead of a piebald- dramatic license if you will. There was likely no spotted horse with the level of training needed available to them…and IIRC that chestnut worked quite a bit in films of that era. Not that big a deal and they did use the same horse in most if not all scenes.
Unlike the typical switch to a totally different color, different build, different mane and tail length and shoe polish running off fake white markings. Like we can’t tell the difference. And, of course, the transvestite horses switching sexes between scenes. That does bug me to the point of ruining the suspension of disbelief required to enjoy a movie.
But I cannot stand the racket they dub in, nickers, whinnies, snorts, hoof beats, water splashing et al. Seems to be getting worse these days, especially in documentaries, like I’m sure they had those groundhogs and rattlesnake miced up down in the burrows and caught the splashing of the creek from half a mile away:cool:. Stick a sock in it guys.
Ummm…I liked Electric Horseman even though it was kind of stupid. Once you get past the mild mannered Quarter Horse pretending to be a TB stakes Classic winner and the stoopid plot, it’s entertaining, the scenery is beautiful, music good, supporting cast outstanding and the horse and stunt work is top level. So shoot me, I always enjoy it. It’s my favorite bad horse movie.
Beside Wilily Nelson and a couple his very best songs, he’s got one of my favorite lines out of any movie. This being a family board I won’t repeat the unedited version, something about a trailer hitch ball.
Most recently, in A Winter’s Tale, they couldn’t be bothered to cut the flash tab off the horse’s caveson and he was using a saddle type that wouldn’t have existed, in NYC anyway, in that time period.
But as for the fact that movie horses seem to vocalize and nicker constantly… that used to bother me a lot more until I met my current horse. He nickers as a sort of reflex reaction to any move I make if he’s just a little anxious. You ought to hear him when the vet walks up with a needle or the farrier sternly says “Stand RIGHT There.” :lol:
Moondance Alexander. The whole movie is one big pile of NO.
In War Horse, there was a scene where the horse was ridden in a pelham with just a curb rein. Gaaaaah that drove me mental.
I can’t be the only one who notices that whenever someone is mucking a stall in a movie their technique is generally horrendous.
At the end of the Hidalgo movie, there’s HUGE honker. After the horse is about dead from the race, he falls into that spike pit and spears himself through the shoulder. So cowboy cuts off the tack with his big ol knife and cries for the horse. Which recovers and he gets on bareback to continue the race.
Until a few seconds before then end, when miraculously, he is galloping for a few seconds again in FULL tack! Which then disappears again and the race is won bareback.
I saw that movie in the theater and got myself shushed for laughing loudly at that part. It was supposed to be the High Drama of the movie but that just made me laugh hysterically 
[QUOTE=Traum;7886387]
At the end of the Hidalgo movie, there’s HUGE honker. After the horse is about dead from the race, he falls into that spike pit and spears himself through the shoulder. So cowboy cuts off the tack with his big ol knife and cries for the horse. Which recovers and he gets on bareback to continue the race.
Until a few seconds before then end, when miraculously, he is galloping for a few seconds again in FULL tack! Which then disappears again and the race is won bareback.
I saw that movie in the theater and got myself shushed for laughing loudly at that part. It was supposed to be the High Drama of the movie but that just made me laugh hysterically :D[/QUOTE]
At least what’s-his-name knew how to ride the horse :lol:
That they use multiple horses to stand in and represent a single horse is typical, and completely forgivable. But why the heck does each one manage to wear an obviously different bit and other clear differences in equipment within the same scene? None of these filmmakers would use different makes of car to be a single car!
The typical horse story trope is the horsey that was crippled and washed up and then goes to Win Great Big Event. This is true in books as well as movies.
I note that unhorsey filmmakers like really odd angles, like the horse jumping over the camera, or lots of pictures of feet, that frequently don’t resonate for me.
In the tv show Vikings, the horses are generally wearing nifty figure 8’s.
