Robin Hood Film horses

Lord of the Rings were way more generous. They needed so many Riders of Rohan that they had to use women as well as men. My friend had a beard applied made from real human hair - the things cost over NZ$1000! They were most upset on set when one of the riders rode face first into a tree branch, broke their nose and bled all over the beard!

I have all sorts of stories from those movies - every time I guided a trek out into the mountains I had to re-tell them all. (Like a scene that they cut from the movie when one of the hobbits was mean to ride with the cavalcade of horses into camp, turn left and ride through camp. Every time the group turned, the little pony would bugger off the other way! they had to cut it in the end as pony was driving them mad and refused to play the game!) The one riding the horses used in the movie were always mega excited and wanted extra photos of them on their movie star!

I have a little black andalusian - I am waiting for the call up for when there is a movie made about Zorro the childhood years (he is only 14hh, but other than that TOTALLY looks the part!)
 
natalia said:
We got asked to provide horses for this but sadly couldn't as our lot had other commitments. However, excitingly I had a call a couple of days ago scouting out horses for he new Speilburg production of War Horse which starts filming in August, so hopefully some of our lot will be in that. And yes, sadly, all they ever want is male extras to ride, which is quite annoying! Friend of mine is doing War Horse and was also involved in Robin Hood for 6 months, he said they ended up using a lot of polo ponies as extras for the battle scenes as they were fine with swords waving round.
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OMG you have me so excited about this! I have seen war horse twice at theatre and it was incredible! Bawled my eyes out both times!
They took two of the Household Cavalry horses down to Covent Garden to meet the puppet horses apparantly they werent sure! haha
 
Well, I have a friesian and an OH who can ride, where do I apply, lol! It would be nice for them to both earn me some money rather than cost me :)
 
Really interesting thread - I might go and see the film now to see the horses :)

There was a good article in my local newspaper about the saddles for the film being made in Walsall.
 
My OH and I walked the dogger round where the castle was. It's the same place in Elstead where they filmed the 1st battle scene in gladiator.

It looked amazing from the front but when we walked round the back, it looked like it was made from polystyrene! Can't wait to see it!
 
Luckylocalian said:
Oh my god I would LOVE to be an extra... I would even grow a beard for the part :) Where do you even find out about stuff like this? x
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Oh no seriously you don't. I worked in film production for years (location dept) and being an extra is ****. You hang around for hours on end. You get fed last. You are herded around like cattle most of the time. You have to wear the costumes which may mean your freezing / baking for large chunks of the day. You meet some seriously strange other extra's who tell you endless stories of when they shook hands with this famous person, or that famous person.

Your stranded on set for the whole day so if you've read the paper you bought and your bored - your stuffed. One particularly shoot my job was to make sure none of hte extra's even HAD papers cause the silly actress was getting upset over press articles, so poor sods had to spend all day with no paper to read.

Most of the time - depending on the production - you are sat on a bus / coach or inside a marquee (which is usually freezing). If your in Scotland you get eaten alive by midges and nobody gives a toss - you can be damned sure the crew are unlikely to share their precious Avon skin so soft with you.

I still work for Sundance (robert Redford's organisation) and love going over stateside to the film maker labs which are amazing. Tiny but amazing. But its not film productions as such so none of the **** going around.

i still visit mates with offices at Pinewood which is lovely but as god is my witness I will never set foot on a film production set as a crew member for as long as I live. While I'm at Uni I've been working part time supervising offenders doing community services and I would choose to spend time with them over spending time with a crew every time.
 
Great thread, very interesting:D:D

The teacher in medieval history, sorry can't remember, oh yes, diggerbez is it??? Can you tell us a bit more about horses lives in that period. I mean, would they have to stand for hours, I presume that they were work tools rather than leisure tools, if you see what I mean.:)
 
cool thread!

Picking up on the braveheart horse part - didnt the flighty one have a standing matringale on? I remeber watching it when i was a kid and thought "were they invented then??"

Lol Since then ive oftened wondered how hard it is for them to get tack to be as authentic as possible yet still workable on the horses!
 
Great thread, really nice to know real people in the film. I wasn't going to go, but might now. I saw the bit about the saddles being made in Walsall.

But - er - isn't Russell Crowe from New Zealand?
 
alainax said:
cool thread!

Picking up on the braveheart horse part - didnt the flighty one have a standing matringale on? I remeber watching it when i was a kid and thought "were they invented then??"

Lol Since then ive oftened wondered how hard it is for them to get tack to be as authentic as possible yet still workable on the horses!
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I was impressed by the authentic tack. Proper medieval looking curly long-shank bits and some obviously new saddles made to look just the part - though I did think they should have been serge lined, not leather, but perhaps Lords of the Manor did have leather and the peasants had serge.

Not a pelham or a snaffle in sight that I remember - does anyone remember the opening credits to Black Beauty when it was a serial on TV? He took off to jump a hedge in an eggbut snaffle and landed in a pelham - how clever is that!?!?!?
 
ORANGEHORSE said:
Great thread, really nice to know real people in the film. I wasn't going to go, but might now. I saw the bit about the saddles being made in Walsall.

But - er - isn't Russell Crowe from New Zealand?
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He was born in NZ but was raised in Australia and my limited knowledge is that he considers himself to be Australian. He's bought an Australian Rules Rugby team and still has his home / farm there.

I was super fortunately to be his 'wrangler' at Sundance many years ago (nothing glam just making sure he got where he was going on time at a screening, the party etc) and he's a genuine horseman. He was going from the film fest to look at mustangs to ship back to Australia. I'd tried to get him to go to Ireland and look at the proper travellers cobs - not gypsy varners but working travellers horses - but apparently mustangs feet are like lead and don't have as many shoeing issues etc.

I can't comment on the authenticity of the tack but I know Ridley Scott is super super fussy about stuff like that so could be they did try and get approximate as possible while still being safe etc.
 
I was about to throw a hissy fit as I missed my chance of a lifetime.

I'm male, an archer, a swordsman and a (sort of) horseman (anyone see a theme here). I am only a couple of hours drive from Pembrokeshire and would have really enjoyed pounding around on horses on the beach.

Then I read Minxie's post about extras and decided that I was better off just going to work as normal and saving my holiday for...well, holidays.

Fame and (mis)fortune has passed me by again....probably just as well.

Still think Robin should have been played by an Englishman. Do we have any actors with the box office pull of Mr Crowe....no, probably not :mad: At least he was not played by Tom (short ar$e) Cruise, I can't stand him.
 
Me and a friend were asked too untill our hunt were told boys only :(
loads of my friends done it and when they came back you could have sworn they'd been in war for real
they all glamming it up in carmarthen at a special premier tonight :D
 
Just seen it and LOVED it but I knew I would! My two favourite films are Gladiator and Robin Hood: Prince of Thieves (Kevin Costner) and this was like some awesome combination of the two!

The horses were beautiful, as they always are for these things, and I thought that Crowe and Blanchett were both excellent... as they always are. :P It was quite violent but ever so exciting with a touch of humour and romance. It was a bit awkward watching it with my French fiancé though!
 
A guy who's keeps his daughter's pony on our yard is a stunt rider & he worked on Robin Hood. He's a retired jockey & rides in loads on films & TV programs. He's been signed up with the rest of his crew to do the riding stunts in 'War Horse' & is looking forward to it....it's a really nice pay day for him aswell. There is good money to be earned. ;) He doesn't actually own a horse himself but reckons he'll get himself one after War Horse.
 
Luckylocalian said:
Oh my god I would LOVE to be an extra... I would even grow a beard for the part :) Where do you even find out about stuff like this? x
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Lol, don't joke - a cousin of mine is regularly an extra in films and will do anything to get a gig, he'll respond "yes" to any query that comes from the agency. For Robin Hood, he not only grew a beard but also learnt archery!!
 
This film was AMAZING <3 I want Russell Crowe and his white horse <3 He's gourgous. My Boyfriend has got hs eye on a cardboard cut out at the cinema for me 8D Seriously cool horses, galloping along that beach looked immense!
 
I actually got round to seeing the film on Tuesday . . . . enjoyed it but it was what I expected i.e. Gladiator with bows and arrows. They even used some of the same sort of scenes and at the end where he's galloping the length of the soldiers lines, my son turned to me and we both said "where's the dog?" as it was a complete reprise of the scene at the beginning of Gladiator with the immortal line "At my signal, unleash hell" . . . but they are both Ridley Scott movies . . . .
. . . one thing that made us hoot out loud though was the landing craft . . . hmmm . . . no . . . I doubt very much if they would have had WWII landing craft in 1200!!!!
Good film but definitely an amalgam of Gladiator, Lord of the Rings (I wondered all the way through what the hobbit-type boys were all about), Troy and a dash of Saving Private Ryan. Sadly, no memorable speeches or lines but Mark Strong was yummy
 
alainax said:
ive oftened wondered how hard it is for them to get tack to be as authentic as possible yet still workable on the horses!
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its easy in most cases, it just takes finding a saddler/harness maker/leather worker that will listen to what you want/need. Im in the process at the moment of getting a replica of the sutton hoo metalwork made up for a bridle for SWA so that once he is fully ready we can go hit people looking proper (Angua 2 & Faro i will join your cliche )
 
Robin Hood was filmed at Pembrooke beach AND Windsor Great Park! A heck of a lot of travelling back and forth! How the actors et al managed to do this and work all day/night I do not know-very long days and then with the travelling.

Nottingham was supposed to start production in 2008 where over 2000 horses and MALE riders were booked.

Due to 'budget' and 101 other excuses filming began in May 2009 and ended in Sept 2009. Hence why then the mad rush to find lots of riders and horses asap!

Russell's horse was called Rusty! Both his children loved the horse and got very excited about their Dad riding him!

Iberians/Andalusians are used basically as they are ROCK steady neds and so easily trainable.

Steve Dent as mentioned was Horsemaster-his father Reg Dent of course owned the Original Black Beauty in 70's that was filmed by LWT.

If you want to have a look at some film work with horses google Devils Horsemen-Gerard Naprous.
 
cptrayes said:
I've just seen Robin Hood (good film!) and I checked to see where it was filmed because the vast majority of the horses in it seemed to be either dishing Iberians or Friesians. Certainly all with legs much thinner than they would actually have been riding in around 1200, before TB's were "invented". To my surprise it was filmed in England and Wales. Has anyone got any idea why they filmed with European horses instead of British ones??????
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Iberians were used in battle all over Europe for centuries, they were alos used to improve many breeds in the UK that have since disappeared.oh, and the dishing, thin legged Iberians predate TBs by quite alot. certainly they predate carthorses as riding horses :p Having a thin legged dishing Iberian I probably took your comments the wrong way but you'd be hard pressed to convince me to have anything else as my horse can do pretty much anything, is as tough as nails and he's pretty :D
 
I also know someone whose 4 horses were used in the film along with their male riders.as extras. I watched the film ONLINE 2 days after release in movies.It is VERY violent.But good.
 
peteralfred said:
Iberians were used in battle all over Europe for centuries, they were alos used to improve many breeds in the UK that have since disappeared.oh, and the dishing, thin legged Iberians predate TBs by quite alot. certainly they predate carthorses as riding horses :p Having a thin legged dishing Iberian I probably took your comments the wrong way but you'd be hard pressed to convince me to have anything else as my horse can do pretty much anything, is as tough as nails and he's pretty :D
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Ditto this! Apparently Iberian mares influenced the TB as well. Andalusians were the "breed of kings" and seen all over Europe.

If mine is anything to go by, they're right show-offs as well so perfect for films ;)
 
Ooh Pembs people, were they shooting on Freshwater East or West? Spent a great deal of my childhood playing on both :D
Thought it looked like West from the first pics, but from what I can remember it's virtually innaccesible other than down a load of steps? :confused:
 
The stud where i bought my andalusion from...
One of their stallions was used in the kevin costner Robin hood film! and one of there other stallions was used to model the curretn horse amour for russel crowes horse
you can check out some pics at millpark andalusions :-)
 
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