Horses in the movies
I have been fascinated by how horses are trained and handled in the movies. We often hear about horses that died during filming or abuse in the movie industry towards animals in general. One horse trainer that I would love to see a documentary on is the trainer or trainers that trained the horses for the Black Stallion movies. The last movie in the series had a small clip on the DVD that showed how he used long whips to direct the horses from a distance of sometimes a 1/4 mile away or more.
Petrine Mitchum wrote a book on the subject of horses in the movies. She is the daughter of the well know cowboy actor Robert Mitchum. Her book “Hollywood Hoofbeats” is on my Christmas list this year.
The book promises lots of behind the scenes stories on some of the biggest horse names in the movies. Petrine also writes for Horse Illustrated magazine and is an film maker in her own right. The book “Hollywood Hoofbeats” was to have been originally made into a documentary but ended up as a book instead. It chronicles how the treatment of horses in the movie industry progressed from cruel and harsh to today’s more humane treatment and awareness.
