Always wondered why...

[Birker2020]

Western horses in the movies to me always look so unhappy when they are ridden.

They always seem to be hollow, head in the air, wild eye, hollow backed, mouth gaping open. They always seem to be chewing on their bits too.

Take the examples below. Is it because the bits they use are harsher than ours? Or are the riders heavy handed with the reins? Why do they yank them in the mouth so much when they turn for example.

I appreciate their riding style differs from ours but if ours horses looked as miserable as theirs people would be up in arms.

 

[Parrotperson]

Suspect it’s a bit down to the times and what they need for the film to make it look exciting. In those days though they didn’t worry about this kind of thing. They don’t make many westerns any more!

 

[Birker2020]

I'm watching 1883 at the moment, I'm not much of a western film fanatic, but I'm really enjoying this.

 

[P.forpony]

Actors aren't necessarily riders...
The yank is definitely an unfortunate dramatic gesture and defeats the point of neck reining by pulling on the outside rein as it crosses over the neck.
You're probably seeing a well schooled horses confused response to being badly ridden.

And for the chewing a lot of shanked Western bits have a cricket or a roller in the port that they can play with.

 

[FieldOrnaments]

@Cortez probably knows

 

[Red-1]

I have ridden real "Western Horses" and they have been brilliant. I'm talking horses backed and only ridden by authentic cowboys, for their work. I taught on them in a couple of English V Western comparison clinics in Arizona, where I was providing the English. I took an English saddle and bridle and had around 20 minutes pre-clinic to get them going in an English way.

The cowboy was amused as the horse hadn't been ridden in a snaffle for many years and had never been ridden in a contact. But, within 20 minutes the horse would have been ready for a BD elementary test. The cowboy was amused at shoulder in as the horse hadn't done one before. We compared his lateral moves and ours.

The horses were relaxed, attentive and tried to work out where the pressure release was. They moved their bodies well, as they were not holding tension.

The film horses you've seen will be just that - ridden as film horses. Actors are actors, not 3rd generation cowboys. I dare say you could put many actors on my sweet BH and ask them to razz round on him. He would, but I bet his head would be up and tense too, mouth open etc. He'd be worried if pulled on and yanked round too.

 

[scats]

Film making today, from a welfare stance, is very different from years ago. They used to trip horses up with wires to make them fall down in films (Vic Armstrong talked about this in some detail). Horse deaths and injuries were not uncommon.

 

[photo_jo]

Film making today, from a welfare stance, is very different from years ago. They used to trip horses up with wires to make them fall down in films (Vic Armstrong talked about this in some detail). Horse deaths and injuries were not uncommon.

Using running w's, they drove horses off a cliff for one movie and jumped a horse off one using a shute -b/w films back in the 30's n 40's

 

[Skib]

I rode a cow pony once on a Mark Rashid course. In Western tack. When a cow broke away from the group, my pony (when prompted by me) went from walk to canter to round it up back into the group. Think of it like a sheep dog.
But horses did slip over a cliff in The Three Burials of Melquiades Estrada a 2005 neo-Western film directed by and starring Tommy Lee Jones and written by Guillermo Arriaga.
Tommy Lee Jones owns or owned a ranch and I assume he rode well. OH says we have that film on DVD.

 

[MuddyMonster]

A well started Western horse is a joy to ride. The vaquero movement is Western based and I think there is so much to like about it and a lot of English ridden horses would benefit from starting bitless and only moving onto a snaffle when deemed ready rather than starting in a snaffle. I restarted mine in a halter, then bitless & now ride in a snaffle or bitless (I had a wonderful natural horsemanship instructor who had spent a lot of time studying the vaqeuro methods in USA) & it's only when I ride others, I realise what a benefit it was.

I wouldn't be judging an entire discipline on it's horse welfare on old films. If you're interested in horses used in films and things nowadays, I'd really recommend looking up Ben Atkinson & Atkinson action/film horses.

 

[FinnishLapphund]

I rode a cow pony once on a Mark Rashid course. In Western tack. When a cow broke away from the group, my pony (when prompted by me) went from walk to canter to round it up back into the group. Think of it like a sheep dog.
But horses did slip over a cliff in The Three Burials of Melquiades Estrada a 2005 neo-Western film directed by and starring Tommy Lee Jones and written by Guillermo Arriaga.
Tommy Lee Jones owns or owned a ranch and I assume he rode well. OH says we have that film on DVD.

That did not happen according to the American Humane Association (AHA)'s Humanehollywood page:
"In the first dramatic fall, the mule kicks one of the horses, which rears up and drops off a cliff. This action sequence employed both the live animals and computer-generated imagery (CGI). Trainers positioned both animals near the cliff edge and cued the horse to rear up; a trick camera angle made the animals appear closer to the edge than they really were. The mule kick was added digitally in post production, as was the falling horse. To set up this CGI shot, production threw a garbage can over the cliff and the camera filmed it tumbling down. Special effects wizards in post production then turned that garbage can into a horse.

Later, Pete’s horse missteps in the desert, and both animal and rider fall down. After a brief struggle, they manage to get back on their feet. Production used a specially trained falling horse for this action, and a stuntman stepped in for Jones for the shot when it appears the horse is on top of the actor, preventing him from getting up. The clever camera angle disguises the fact that the actor was actually next to the horse—not underneath it."

If anyone is interested, and clicks on the link, there's also information about how e.g. buried chicken was used in a scene involving 2 coyotes, and 1 wolf (doesn't say if it was a real wolf, or a dog meant to look like a wolf, but apparently the coyotes were real coyotes).

ETA: So if you decide to watch that DVD film @Skib , you can do it without feeling bad for the real animals./ETA

I'm sure that even though they've in general gotten much better at the handling of real animals during filming, accidents can sadly still happen, so maybe it happened during the filming of another film.
E.g. during the filming of Simpatico (a film about the Kentucky horse-racing culture, and some people involved in it), it says on the AHA/Humanehollywood page that an accident occurred that resulted in a horse being euthanised. AHA investigated and determined that no cruelty had occurred, and that it was a genuine accident. But since they don't have a rating which says They tried to not harm any animals but an accident happened, they rated the film as Questionable. Which seems to have made the filmmakers decide to add an unauthorized end credit disclaimer instead of the real official AHA rating.

 

[FinnishLapphund]

By the way, I remember seeing something like this video some years ago, showing a trick horse that have learnt to fall down

 

[Alibear]

The only other thing to add is that they open their mouths because they can; there are three nosebands that do not restrict them.
With a curb bit, if you pull back in the English style, the horse will lift its head. For a western curb, you don't pull back. You lift your hand up. After so many years of English riding, I still revert to pulling on occasion, it's a tough instinct to get rid of.