HORSE ACTORS IN FILM: THE PRACTICAL THREATS AND CGI RESCUES

When we think of horses in film, we think of the battle scenes in Napoleon (Scott, 2023)( Scott, 2023) with the scene of a horse getting shot at or the classic Jane Austen adaptations films Sense and Sensibility (Lee, 1995) and Pride and Prejudice(Wright, 2005) where horses are seen as a tool to resemble status and a way to commute back in the 1800s before automobiles or even Black beauty (Thompson, 1994) a reflection towards how humanity is presented through his life experiences but have ever wonder, how are these stunts of Beauty charging through the woods while pulling a very heavy carriage. It does reflect a lot on how horses are seen and treated in this world. 

However, all of these films have the same thing in common, they are film productions that require real horses to do the practical stunts. These examples make us question, how are horses trained or the most important and brutal question, is the horse safe? Or even treated well on set. 

In Napoleon (Scott, 2023)  horses are working on a big battle scene which requires a lot of training and careful choreographing and safety considerations. We don’t want to dive back into Jesse James (King, 1939) where a horse is required to fall off a hill. This dangerous stunt caused the horse to die on set. We see in Westerns where horses are used to bolt through the empty fields.

Techniques that were introduced before CGI are the Tripwires to make the horse actors fall when they run (Waldman, 2023). 

There are more techniques that the horses have been forced to perform which will be covered in this article. The view of horses are seen as props and we can do whatever we want to without considering their safety. Practical horse stunts have shaped the way horse stunts are in modern cinema giving the audience and young filmmakers a chance to enhance that visual and bring it to the next level but in a safer environment for horse actors. 

Chase (Horses In Film: Abuse For Entertainment?) expresses her concern that Horse’s lives should not be put on the line to create a realism scene whether it’s depicting the realities of a war, or showcasing the greatness of a race horse.

Horses' lives should not be put on the line for entertainment sake and to create realism to a scene whether it’s depicting the brutal side of War, or on the race track to becoming a mark in history.