Working or famous horses, Cortez, anyone else?

[fburton]

Utterly fascinating thread.

 

[Goldenstar]

Yes, and yes. Actually that is our greatest "use" as we do a lot of historical consultation (again, not just horses) for TV and film. Drives me mad when they get it wrong.

Drives me mad too and won't know half as much about it as you will.

 

[Pigeon]

That's an amazing photo!!!

 

[Cortez]

BEFORE The Incident............

The script was along the lines of "2 Georgian gentlemen discuss the merits of their horses without wanting to get their shoes dirty by going to stables, so horses are brought in by grooms", or something like that.

 

[undergroundoli]

Why aren't the more Cleveland Bays in historical dramas? Are the just not enough to find ones with the right attributes?

Best thread ever, thanks everyone

 

[Billabongchick]

A lady at my yard when I was a teenager had a lovely big grey horse called Solomon who was in The Madness of King George ridden by the main character I think. He was a lovely big softy.

If you watch here at 8.39 I think that is him!http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7wdRQlJ4kvI

 

[L&M]

My cob was 'supposedly' a horse extra in the Robin Hood movie starring Russel Crowe - my husband (non-horsey!) is sure he has spotted him in one of the scenes, but I am yet to be convinced!

 

[undergroundoli]

If you watch here at 8.39 I think that is him!http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7wdRQlJ4kvI

He is lovely, as is the plasterwork in Cortez's before photo.

 

[Megibo]

"Reign of Fire"

No waaaaay! The bay that Quinn rides whilst being chased by a mahoosive dragon?!

Mind you there's only one horse in the film so guess I answered my own question! *impressed*

..also totally not a film nerd..

 

[Goldenstar]

Do you have carriages ? Or do you barrow / hire them are they antiques or do people mock them up .
Carriages are often 'wrong ' ( not I am sure in your films cortez ) usually much more recent than the time of the drama .
Have you done any ancient Rome / Greece things .?

 

[Cortez]

We don't do carriages ourselves any more, but our "carriage guy" supplies most of what we need, and we can adapt to suit, or hire specialist vehicles in (usually from Hungary or France). It is massively expensive, though, so production companies often don't bother and just use whatever is to hand (anybody see "Tudors"? We most definitely DID NOT work on that!).

Not done anything Roman since "King Arthur"; we try to work "at home" as much as possible, so limited to whatever is filming in Ireland these days.

 

[cptrayes]

Three star Blenheim is three.

Still awesome

 

[Goldenstar]

We don't do carriages ourselves any more, but our "carriage guy" supplies most of what we need, and we can adapt to suit, or hire specialist vehicles in (usually from Hungary or France). It is massively expensive, though, so production companies often don't bother and just use whatever is to hand (anybody see "Tudors"? We most definitely DID NOT work on that!).

Not done anything Roman since "King Arthur"; we try to work "at home" as much as possible, so limited to whatever is filming in Ireland these days.

Tudors was so bad I spent a fair bit of my time yelling nooooooooo at the tv ,
Shame because the costumes where beauiful.

 

[Hexx]

I rode one of the early Lloyds Bank black horses - he was as stiff as a board!

At the same yard, I went on a 6-lesson stunt riding course and rode some of their film friesians. Definitely a different way to ride.

The lady who ran the yard supplied quite a lot of stunt horses, she still has a yard and must be in her 70's now - not sure if she still supplies film horses though,

 

[Goldenstar]

At least he recognised the picture. My show hunter won at the Counties at few years ago and the pro picture was a lovely one. Duly bought it, framed it and put it on the wall at home.

The following year the show did it's normal advertising in newspapers and on flyers put on cars and lorries at other shows. I pulled the flyer off our lorry windscreen and said to my friend " look at that, lovely horse wouldn't mind owning that".

You do..............[/QUOTE

Oops at least your consistent .
Yes now you mentain it is good he recognised it.
However he was at the same fence we have his shot of it in the loo and remember the photographer being there because they had a short chat just before Oh legged it to the next fence he could get to.

 

[Mince Pie]

You start out with a divided screen and just ask them to ride between the two halves, then gradually bring them closer and closer together and increase the pace. Could take a couple of months of very patient training, and not all will do it, but once they learn to break the sugar (stunt glass is very thin panes of boiled sugar) with their noses it's pretty easy after that. One of mine would hurl himself at any window if you weren't careful, so subsequent training has included teaching them NOT to go through the real ones!

LOL!
Criso - I'm sorry but your village is called Cockington?? ROFL! (sorry, very childish humour!)
AA - How do you not recognise your own horse!

I did a brief stint with Janet Rogers when I was at college and the Devil's Horsemen are based very close to my mum. I was seriously considering moving up there and had asked them for a job before I did my back in. Apart from that no famous horse here, the closest I can claim to fame is that A P McCoy once rode my ex racer!

ETA: Hexx, I think we were at the same yard! When were you there?

 

[montanna]

Turned down a horse fall into deep water; didn't like that, but the horse that did it was a specialist diving horse and happily did it all day long. That was his only job though; he didn't do anything else.

literally just lol'd,brilliant!

 

[cptrayes]

When I was a kid a photographer came to the yard and borrowed 3 of us to take our photo riding through the village. Gave us a pound between the three of us and we thought nothing of it.

It turned up on calendars, birthday cards and a jigsaw which I still have.

Neighbour of mine has a similar jigsaw of herself on her pony in a village called Rainow. From about 1965 I think.

I had my photo taken once by a guy who said he would be selling it to a US magazine as a typical scene from England. He sent me some 10x8 copies, so I think it was genuine. As I recall I was wearing jeans but no hat in 1980, so pretty far from typically English rose on her pony!

 

[Caledonia]

After The Incident......

I knew these horses. Father and son.

 

[LadyGascoyne]

Fantastic thread! Cortez, I'm sure you're generally bored and cold but still sounds absolutely awesome to me! Stunning horse too!

 

[Hexx]

Broke-but-happy - yes it was at Janet Rogers' yard, probably around 20 years ago!! I took another one of her horses round Windsor Great Park sponsored ride - Captain, he only had one eye, but boy could he jump! I had to ride the black horse to prove I was capable enough before she would let me out on Captain.

 

[stencilface]

A combination of prosthetic horse head (i.e. a dummy), CGI and make up. Not my horse, all the featured/actor's horses are supplied by the Devil's Horsemen/Gerard Naprous.

I did work experience with Gary Gero who supplies all the animals for the Harry Potter films, so no horses, and I asked about horse work and I think the French guy may have been the one he recommended. I remember it being a father/son team and I was told to watch out as they were a bit lechy.

I spent most of my time walking dogs (the Harry Potter neoppolitan mastiffs ( there were three) who play fang amongst many others) cleaning cages and training the pigs. The pigs are in front of the Weasleys house, and they stand on a wall, it took days to train lol. I did get to stand about all day with a couple of owls and the weasly family on set though, never seen so many ginger people in one place

 

[Mr Nick]

Fantastic, lovely thread. Particular thanks to Cortez

 

[3Beasties]

Wow Cortez, I had absolutely no idea that this is what you did. Totally fascinating!


A friend of mine is a stable hand in the War horse film and I'm pretty sure he did a bit of riding for it too.


Talking of diving horses, has anyone seen the film wild hearts can't be broken? It's incredible how high the horses dive from (although I'm not sure I agree with it).

http://www.amazon.co.uk/Wild-Hearts...=8-1&keywords=wild+hearts+can't+be+broken+dvd

 

[The Fuzzy Furry]

Cortez, I take my hat off to you

my only claims are:
Working with Puff the Magpie pony
Taking 2 of mine to feature on Blue Peter on separate occasions (still got video of 1)
Taking 1 to the royal mews for my daughter to ride in a display in that tiny indoor school (and daughter got along chat with both HMQ and also the DofE)
Teaching a band of japanese the basics so they could be mounted in some film made in france in the 80's
Nothing on big screen tho

 

[dieseldog]

Did you have Mel Gibson's black horse in Braveheart - he was stunning.

 

[cundlegreen]

You've just broken a thousand people's hearts, I think Desert Orchid is ugly

Sorry, I was pretty disappointed myself!

 

[criso]

I was wearing jeans but no hat in 1980, so pretty far from typically English rose on her pony!

If you were able to zoom in you would see the old style paper thin riding hats with the traditional piece of elastic to hold it in place. The ponies are only clean because we had a gymkhana that afternoon and we'd bathed them.

The village (yes broke_but_happy it's called cockington ) is famous and a massive tourist attraction and we got our picture taken all the time so I suspect I am in holiday snaps all over the world.

 

[flurryjuno]

Game of Thrones is filmed near me (my faveourite show) and they went round looking for horses as extras at one point. Nearly died when I got back from holiday and my friend told me! Also YO's hackney was pretty big in the hackney world here once upon a time, shes been on tv quite a bit does that count?

 

[JinglebellJessi & MistletoeMagic]

A filmmaker strolled up the yard one day, Pointed to prince and told me she'd pay for me to lend him to her for a few hours to ride down the local village high street by a cowboy with a small boy walking beside him. I explained he was grossly underweight and unridden so she asked to see kyra instead. She looked her over, and then asked if this 14.2 pony would be able to gallop down the high street with a 6.2ft 16stone man on her back. And would i be able to provide a western saddle?

Tempting as it was, i said no and she replied, yeah she's not really the right colour.

Yeah, a cowboy on an appaloosa, how odd (;
Filmmakers eh?