I was thinking about what would be the hardest career for a horse. We all have horses to fulfill our agenda. We obtain a horse with a career in mind. At first, I thought it might be a racehorse, a rodeo horse, a police horse, or a trail horse. All these jobs require a lot of emotional fortitude from horses.
Then I considered how much effort it must be for a horse to perform at an elite level in a sport that requires extreme speed and physical effort, such as polo, eventing, dressage, or reining.
While all these disciplines do require a horse to be well-trained and skilled, it occurred to me that there is perhaps one profession that demands more from a horse than any other…. movie horse.
Movie horses have to learn a series of different jobs. They have to handle really bad riding. They have to be able to work effortlessly at liberty and on command. They have to run through fire and leap off cliffs. They gallop into battle and withstand gunfire and explosions. They have to fall down at speed and stay laying down when tripped or commanded.
Their jobs change from day to day. They have to handle extreme situations and extreme conditions. They have to demonstrate the full gamut of emotions from passive to extreme. They have to stay in constant control. And every time the camera is on them they have to nicker on cue (hahaha).
I know nothing about training a horse for the movies and the methods they use. Perhaps I would not endorse all the methods used by trainer in the movie business. But I am in awe of the horses that graduate from the training programs and then make it as successful movie horses.
Can you think of other careers that are just as hard and demand just as much from a horse.
From the film Lord Of The Rings