By Staff Writer: Caitlin Daugherty
Since the dawn of cinema animals have been the star of the silver screen. However, no animal can compare to the height of fame that horses have achieved in Hollywood. From shows such as Mr. Ed to movies like War Horse, horses have been silently (and not so silently in the case of Mr. Ed) supporting movies and television since the 1920’s with the creation of the first ever moving picture which so happens to star a horse. With great stardom also comes great suffering however, as many horses have been seriously injured or even killed during the filming of these shows.
One of the most prominent examples of this is the incident on the set of Bonanza where a group of people broke into the stable and physically assaulted the horses. One of the horses was hurt so badly that the cast were forced to put him down. The assailants were never identified or caught. These examples are sadly not the exception but the norm for our equine actors and actresses. In the early days of cinema, horses were forced to run full force into pits in order to simulate falling or getting shot. Some horse extras were hooked up to systems that would pull their legs when they ran so that they would fall on cue. This of course would end up breaking the horse’s legs and they would have to be put down after (Kaz Rowe, 2024). Another invention used on horses was called the tilt chute which would be used to make the horse slip after running and fall right off of a cliff. They would even blind the horses so that they wouldn’t see the greased chute coming (Kaz Rowe, 2024).
Life as a horse actor wasn’t always horrible as many of the actors that worked alongside the horses had a close bond with their horse and would often adopt them after the filming of the show has ended. A great example of this is when Viggo Mortensen adopted two horses off of the set of the Lord of the Rings after the filming of the last movie had wrapped up. Steven Spielberg made sure that the main horse in War Horse was never in any danger. For the infamous barbed wire scene the actor was switched out for an animatronic. Horses now are protected by many animal rights laws and are treated far better now then they were in the days of the tilt chute.