The Tack Room - A City of Horses

You can take the girl out of the country, but you can't take the country out of the girl. I have brought the country to the city with a hot stable, the sweet smell of straw and molasses, and horse ownership in a concrete forest. This is horses in Sydney’s CBD, so welcome to The Tack Room...

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The Tack Room - September 2006

Astride the White Horse and so Into The West...

September 11th 2006 15:24

If you go west across Ireland… across the land of the horse… you will reach

Image from Into The West 1993

the unruly Atlantic Ocean, and if you have seen the film that is Into the West you may look for an imposing white horse in the surf. If you see it, unlikely as it is that you will, you will be looking at an ancient Irish myth. This is the horse of Tir na nOg, who represents the land of eternal youth, and in 1993 a charming Irish film took this horse out of the surf and into the hands of two young traveller boys.

The two boys

Most who see the film will know little about Irish myth or legend, but will know more about the magic of the white horse by the end of it. The magical animal is found astray by a roaming gypsy and led to the depths of Dublin where he takes the destiny of two young boys upon his back and leads them to where they came from – the land.

The film is an enchanting and childish adventure across Ireland from the high towers of the capital to the wild and purple hills of the west where the horse and his legends begin. And that white horse?

Across many cultures the white horse is wrapped in folklore, carrying a princess or king or the guardian of a hidden kingdom like Tir na nOg. He is not usually the fiery beast with an unimaginable wildness like The Black Stallion, but a wise equine of poise and quietude shrouded in majesty that is reflected in his colour. Which is strange, because if you know horses you know there is no such thing as a white horse. A horse of this colour is always grey, but grey is not so regal in myth!

Winston Churchill was fantastic when he mused
“there is something about the outside of a horse that is good for the inside of a man”.

Guinness knew it when they won advert of the year with their white horses in the surf, and the producers of Into The West knew it too. Their vision of the white horse on the beach will make the imagination of all forever young.

Thank you to the following sources for information and images on Into The West.
The Irish Film Board
IMDB film site

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Posted By: Jess - Category: No Category

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The Black Stallion

September 8th 2006 04:45

Cass Ole on set in Sardinia 1978

It was 1978 when Francis Ford Copola brought children to their knees with The Black Stallion. At some time everyone had imagined it – an island, a beach, a big black horse, unity between a boy and a beast. In 1941 author Walter Farley had created it, then written it. After 30 years of enchanting children around the world, Coppola made the movie of it, and ever since there has been no other.

When Copola’s film emerged it appeared it would canter into history with as much appraisal as the novel. The Black Stallion has reached platinum levels as an all-time best selling videocassette, and two more movies of the story followed in later decades.

But the figures are just that – figures. Among horse lovers who catalogue horse movies not by their monetary successes but by the horses in them, The Black Stallion is a homage to the Arabian, and a horse called Cass Ole.

Cass Ole was born in 1969 and owned by San Antonio Arabians in Texas. Before film work he was a show horse and it was his temperament and pride - characteristics in every Arabian – that earned him his role of ‘The Black’. Such was the fame of the horse after filming – and fame indeed, The Black Stallion earned itself not only an army of horse lovers around the globe but two Oscar nominations – that Cass Ole performed in Italy, Sardinia and Algeria. He visited the White House and was present at the inauguration of President Reagan! At the age of 27 he was put down after a severe bout of colic. Take a look around the internet and the number of tribute sites will surprise you.

The Black Stallion set the bar for horse movies, and was almost the first great horse story on film. It was quiet, majestic, and allowed the alliance between a horse and a man to be an image all of its own, to carry the entire film from start to finish. In the US alone horse riding is the number one participant sport for girls aged 10 to 14, and maybe with this in mind Farley was on the money when he mused that many children would rather ride on the back of a horse than pilot a spaceship to the moon…

With thanks to the official site of The Black Stallion.
www.theblackstallion.com

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All the Pretty Horses

September 1st 2006 05:13

It is Friday, and if you stroll through the equestrian centre in Sydney you can feel the weekend is close. Owners peel out of the woodwork like silkworms, the horse at the end of their lead rope well oiled to the routine. ‘The public’ peel away from Centennial Park with young children to come and watch the horsies, their appeal as fascinating to them as it still is to me twenty-five years into my life. Little girls come dressed for weekend lessons, with a bounce that could only mean there is a pony on their mind! And I wonder when I see all these things that the weekend brings… when the people that are with their horses everyday mingle with those that are not… what is it about these large and noble animals that feeds the fire of so many?

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