Things horses only do on the screen

exracehorse said:
It bugs me when you see a medieval film. And the local hero rides a Spanish horse. Flowing mane. Usually black. No .. they would own a hairy old cob or Welsh 😀
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Why? Spanish jennets were prized in medieval times and would most certainly be ridden by "hero" types. Cobs of the vanner type (so, like most modern feathered cobs) are actually much more recent. Welsh cobs have a large dollop of Spanish blood since at least the 16th century.

If you want to see a more "ordinary" type of horse, have a look at the horse used for "A Knight's Tale", Heath Ledger's ride. He was a Czech Warmblood, but far too tall to be completely accurate: the average riding horse in medieval times was 13.2 - 14.2.
 
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I’m reading an historical novel about the 100 years war. The main character, who is poor and therefore doesn’t own a horse is given one after a brave deed.
The horse is thin, weak and sway backed.
I can’t see that translating to the screen
The hero is told that he will be able to capture a better one.
A much easier casting option I think
 
The same soundbites for horses used over and over and over and over, spanning between TV, Film, Radio and Video Games. Pulls me right out of whatever I'm watching/playing/listening to every time I hear them!
 
catembi said:
Someone dismounts, drops the reins...and the horse just stays there...? I have read about a thing called 'ground hitching' but I can't see it working on any of mine!
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Mine ground ties and has, on a few occasions, just stood there once I have taken a tumble (on other occasions he has taken off lol).

Like others...the horsey noises. Drives me absolutely up the wall. Or the fact that all horses seem to be immaculately groomed. Always. If someone has found a self-cleaning horse, please sign me up because mine seems to like the mud a little too much!!
 
Cowpony said:
I really hate all the whinneying too. Especially in the Archers where it's allegedly a riding school.....But when I get too aerated about verisimilitude my husband whispers "it's only pretend!" :D
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Some days at the yard there is a lot of neighing as horses are ridden out and brought back. Other days not a sound.
 
Cowpony said:
I really hate all the whinneying too. Especially in the Archers where it's allegedly a riding school.....But when I get too aerated about verisimilitude my husband whispers "it's only pretend!" :D
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Also in The Archers - all the rattling and jingling which makes it sound as if everything gets ridden in a double; and everyone saying 'Eeeasy girl' to their horse
 
Pippity said:
Words from the instructor on a writing course I went on: "I want to suspend my disbelief, but give me something to hang it on."
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Love that.

The constant whinnying and screaming.

Everyone important rides a Friesian or a PRE. I got f*cked off by Outlander in the first two episodes for many reasons, but the Friesian was one (you could make an argument for the PRE - the Spanish did land in Lochalsh).

They kind of work like cars. You can jump on them and just gallop off and travel at high speed everywhere.

Whatever the f*ck happened in that scene in the most recent season of All Creatures Great and Small. The horse is so psycho that it will probably need euthanised, but jumping on it bareback and galloping across the Yorkshire Moors is apparently the best last ditch effort the vet had up his sleeve. You do you, Sigfried.

The alternative. Elendil in Rings of Power and Aragorn in The Two Towers spending about 30 seconds stroking a horse's head, deciding it's just too messed up for anything, and then turning it loose, all by itself, in a wilderness with wargs and orcs and God knows what. Wearing a headcollar in the case of the latter. Don't think I haven't thought of doing that when one has had a massive meltdown about something, but....

Cavalries who travel everywhere at a gallop.

Every scene in the Wheel of Time, both show and book, where horses didn't take one look at a Waygate, a gateway, or a trolloc and shoot off in the opposite direction.

Obvious horse changes. I guess film necessitates it, but it breaks your suspension of disbelief if you're too horsey. The ones which come to mind are Shadowfax and the Black Stallion. Shadowfax for all his close up scenes was a PRE. Shadowfax for all of his galloping scenes was a TB type. The Black for all the island stuff and close ups was an Arab. But for the race shots, they used a TB.

Riders (usually in westenrs) yanking the s*t out of their horses' mouths with big curb bits.
 
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ycbm said:
I wish I could find it, but in the TV series Adventures of Black Beauty) she jumps a hedge on him and he takes off wearing a snaffle and lands in a Pelham. Now that's a class A groom who can do that!
.
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I'm usually quite good at ignoring details in films when there's horses around, but it happens that I notice e.g. unsuitable for the time period modern rubber reins, and I still vaguely recall an old western film I saw when I was a teenager.
I can't remember it exactly, but either the hero rode in to a turn between some rocks on a brown horse without a blaze, and came out of the turn the next moment on a chestnut with a blaze, or it was the other way around.


Peglo said:
...
“Oh there’s a horse on screen, better make it neigh so the audience knows it’s a horse”
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Peregrine Falcon said:
It's the neighing/whinnying that gets me.
...
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By coincidence I happened to come across a video some time ago, which reminded me about having seen posts on HHO where people complained about horses randomly neighing too much in films. This thread reminded me about that video, and here it is, the interrupting horse:


 
Ratface said:
I think ground tying is more an American/Canadian thing. I follow a site called Keystone Equine, which is interesting and impressive in equal parts. It mentions ground tying.
The author is a woman called Kate. Definitely worth a look, imo.
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The author of Keystone, and two books that are sitting beside me right now, is Lee McLean. Her daughter is Cait so that might have caused a mix up.

Second the recommendation of her fb page, blog and books. She's a fantastic horsewoman and writer.
 
luckyoldme said:
Yes, you're right.
It's not just drama, it's the documentaries too
Everything truck related is banned in our house . I often wonder if it's the same for any profession or pastime .
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Hahaha! Such serendipity!

On another forum, somebody mentioned the business card scene in American Psycho.

Scillian Rail indeed!

I've never seen the film all the way through, but that scene is so exaggerated that everything that is wrong must be deliberate.
 
I'm not to good at ignoring the inaccurate horsey details on tv, if we're watching something that involves a lot of GGs, the other half braces himself for the incoming stream of criticism... this is why we tend to avoid westerns - they make me wince!
Also, some years back we decided we'd give Game of thrones a go - everyone was raving about it. Got a couple of episodes in when suddenly there was a scene where a beautiful Friesian horse gets his head chopped off!! I'd quite recently bought a Friesian horse, and was completely besotted with him (still am)..I know it was a CGI generated scene, but that was it -I was traumatised and never bothered with GOT after that...I think I must be a bit of a snowflake ....
 
Caol Ila said:
Everyone important rides a Friesian or a PRE. I got f*cked off by Outlander in the first two episodes for many reasons, but the Friesian was one (you could make an argument for the PRE - the Spanish did land in Lochalsh
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I don’t understand why people get so cross about Friesian horses (or Flemish Blacks as they were also known) in historical or fantasy films; Frisian horses have been around since at least the 13th century and we’re used for both riding and draught. And Scotland is directly across the sea from the Netherlands so don’t know why the idea of them being there is so difficult.

ETA: Spanish and Friesian horses are used in films for the same reasons that unusually pretty people are used as actors: they look nice.
 
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littleshetland said:
I'm not to good at ignoring the inaccurate horsey details on tv, if we're watching something that involves a lot of GGs, the other half braces himself for the incoming stream of criticism... this is why we tend to avoid westerns - they make me wince!
Also, some years back we decided we'd give Game of thrones a go - everyone was raving about it. Got a couple of episodes in when suddenly there was a scene where a beautiful Friesian horse gets his head chopped off!! I'd quite recently bought a Friesian horse, and was completely besotted with him (still am)..I know it was a CGI generated scene, but that was it -I was traumatised and never bothered with GOT after that...I think I must be a bit of a snowflake ....
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Ha ha ha! I was there on the day they did that scene, it was a prosthetic horse/head and a very good stunt horse - I’m chuffed that it worked so well :)
 
Cortez said:
I don’t understand why people get so cross about Friesian horses (or Flemish Blacks as they were also known) in historical or fantasy films; Frisian horses have been around since at least the 13th century and we’re used for both riding and draught. And Scotland is directly across the sea from the Netherlands so don’t know why the idea of them being there is so difficult.
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I don't want to start a big argument, but Amsterdam is more or less on the latitude as Great Yarmouth, and Leeuwarden (capital of Friesland) on that of Skegness (respectively 53° 12′ N and 53° 8′ 37″ N)...
 
Keith_Beef said:
I don't want to start a big argument, but Amsterdam is more or less on the latitude as Great Yarmouth, and Leeuwarden (capital of Friesland) on that of Skegness (respectively 53° 12′ N and 53° 8′ 37″ N)...
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Yeah, but boats can sail in any direction, so turning right and going to Scotland isn’t a great stretch.
 
littleshetland said:
I'm not to good at ignoring the inaccurate horsey details on tv, if we're watching something that involves a lot of GGs, the other half braces himself for the incoming stream of criticism... this is why we tend to avoid westerns - they make me wince!
Also, some years back we decided we'd give Game of thrones a go - everyone was raving about it. Got a couple of episodes in when suddenly there was a scene where a beautiful Friesian horse gets his head chopped off!! I'd quite recently bought a Friesian horse, and was completely besotted with him (still am)..I know it was a CGI generated scene, but that was it -I was traumatised and never bothered with GOT after that...I think I must be a bit of a snowflake ....
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I never watched The Godfather past the horse head in the bed scene. I hear it's a great movie!

Cortez said:
I don’t understand why people get so cross about Friesian horses (or Flemish Blacks as they were also known) in historical or fantasy films; Frisian horses have been around since at least the 13th century and we’re used for both riding and draught. And Scotland is directly across the sea from the Netherlands so don’t know why the idea of them being there is so difficult.

ETA: Spanish and Friesian horses are used in films for the same reasons that unusually pretty people are used as actors: they look nice.
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We know what sort of horses people rode in the Scottish Highlands in the 19th century, though. The only ones which could survive and which were at all useful up there. The Garron, the precursor to the Highland pony. English and Lowland travellers who brought their own horses had problems with obtaining enough fodder for them, because hay and oats were in short supply, and they were not suitable for many of the tracks.

From a PhD thesis on travelling in the Highlands before there was a semi-extensive road network in the 19th century:

"This total absence of roads and bridges meant that
carriages were of no use at all, and travellers had to use the drove roads that were
often not even suitable for riding horses. They had to lead their horses and had to
walk next to them as these paths were deep and muddy from the livestock driven
over them. The bigger and heavier English and Lowland horses had great difficulties
in walking on the boggy and deep ground in the Highlands. The smaller and lighter
Highland horses were far more suitable for this ground."

This chap had a bad time: "The horse carrying his portmanteau broke through the surface and sank
‘almost up to the back’ in the bog. Neither Burt nor his guide could ease the horse’s
burden as it struggled to break free. Fortunately, after about a quarter of an hour the
horse got out ‘bedaubed with the slough, shaking with fear, and his head and neck all
over in a foam’."

General Wade's roads, completed in 1736 (with the bridge over the River Spean), improved access and transport, but there were only four of them. Fort William to Inverness, Crieff to Dalnarcadoch, Inverness to Dunkeld, and Dalwhinnie to Fort Augustus via the Corryairack Pass. They obviously didn't go everywhere and inns stlll had issues with providing enough fodder for traveller's horses and stables large enough for horses that were not Garrons or Shetlands.

And they didn't always make things better. From a traveller crossing the Corryairack (which has now been replaced by the A86 and is just a hiking trail):
"The day he crossed Corryarraick was a continued violent rain and storm of wind, which
gave it the appearance of wild desolation, beyond any thing he could describe; and the
whole of the road itself, he said, was rough, dangerous, and dreadful, even for a horse. The
steep and black mountains, and the roaring torrents, rendered every step his horse took,
frightful; and when he attained the summit of the zig-zag up Corryarraick, he thought the
horses, himself, man and all would be carried away,.."

The barefoot v. shod debate was alive and well in the 18th century:
"The middle ranks objected that the roads would be an inconvenience
because the gravel would soon wear away the hoofs of their horses and make them
unserviceable. Burt explained that shoeing the horses was no alternative. There were
no farriers in the Highlands because there were neither enough people within a
reasonable distance to maintain them, nor did the Highlanders have the money to
shoe their horses."

In the decades following the '45 Rebellion, there was another spate of road-building in the Highlands. This travellers says that the paths still deteriorated when you left the military roads.
"Beyond Inverary the military are making a new road to Teyendrom [Tyndrum],
which there is to fall in to the great road from Sterling to Fort William. They have already
compleated 4 miles, which we passed in our way to Port Sonachan Ferry, 15 miles distant.
The instant we left the new road we found ourselves in the most horrid paths that can be
conceived, up and down steep hills, through bogs in some places, in others filled with large
loose stones where our horses had no firm footing or, what was worse, now and then
staircases of solid, craggy rock."

I think it's fair to say that 18th century Highlanders were not galloping around Friesians or anything larger than a small Highland.
 
"I think it's fair to say that 18th century Highlanders were not galloping around Friesians or anything larger than a small Highland."

Very probably, but then it's also fair to say that there wern't time travellers from the 1940's wobbling around either......
 
Petalpoos said:
1) Live without any apparent need for food or drink. I am re-watching GoT at the moment and note that riders seem to be able to ride through deep snow for days and just tie their horse to a tree each night, then off they go again. In a recent episode of The Last of Us (which I loved) the poor horse was left in a suburban garage for a few days, with all its tack on, and was then apparently fine and galloped off.

2) Whinny and neigh etc constantly - when any horse or group of horses appears on screen, cue for lots of whinnying.

3) All riding starts and ends at a canter. Straight out of the stable, mount, canter off.No

Any other particularly egregious examples you have noticed?
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I saw that episode quite bizarre poor thing just stood there all ready to go like a motor car met quite a grisly end as well 😒
 
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