Posted on 08/03/2003 7:37:20 PM PDT by PJ-Comix
I hate horses.
Yeah, I know horses look like noble creatures but they are incredibly filthy plus they are dangerous as hell. I remember working as a kid in the stable of our Tennessee farm on a summer break from my Washington D.C. hotel suite residence, building up my résumé as a farmer for my future political career. Even though I only had to do such work for about a couple of hours each summer, I really hated it. Horse sweat smells horrible and even worse is the odor of manure mixed in with gallons of urine.
One summer I was putting in my few hours of farmer résumé time by shoveling some hay in a stable. It was a hot day so I hung my expensive Abercrombie & Fitch sweatshirt on a hook next to a stall. After about fifteen minutes I figured I put in enough farmer résumé time and when I went to retrieve my sweatshirt I was in for a big shock. A damn horse not only took my sweatshirt off the hook and dropped it on the ground but he also took a massive dump and urinated all over it. Then, to add insult to injury, the horse stomped all over the sweatshirt to ensure that its equine extract thoroughly inundated it forever. And I do mean forever. Once a horse mashes its foul excrement into your clothing, no amount of washings will rid it of that nauseating odor.
Think the "good old days" before the horseless carriages were really all that good? Well, consider this: before cars were the primary means of transport, major cities were inhabited by tens of thousands of horses. Considering that each horse excretes up to FIFTY pounds daily of excrement and urine; multiplying that by the thousands of horses each day and the city streets were covered with TONS of horse manure and liquid extract. No way sanitation departments could handle that load so most of that fly-covered waste was left to decay outside and spread all sorts of diseases.
It must have been hell to just take a breath in urban areas back in the "good old days." And forget trying to just eat a sandwich outdoors. The smell alone would make you upchuck the food before it would even reach your stomach. Eating food outdoors back then would have been about as appetizing as dining on the edge of an open septic tank.
At least cats and dogs can be trained to do their excretory activities in preferred locations such as in the kitty litter box or by some tree at the park. Horses, despite their much-vaunted intelligence, will just take a dump wherever they happen to be. Anyone who was ever in a marching band knows this to be true since any horses on the parade route will leave a steady trail of heavy droppings that the marching bands behind them will later have to carefully negotiate. No wonder few people ever keep horses as house pets. Dogs and cats, when they do forget their training and leave deposits on the carpet, only have relatively small amounts for their owners to remove with a pooper scooper. With a horse, you would need to remove its deposits with a shovel and then declare your carpet to be a disaster zone.
Remember that movie producer in The Godfather who was screaming when he woke up in bed? Initially it wasn't the horse's head on the pillow he was screaming about. What set his screaming off was the big pile of doo-doo that the horse left on the sheets before its head was removed. More humane mobsters would have avoided even taking off its head since the horse crap on the bed alone would have done the trick of terrifying the producer. So the next time you moan about auto exhaust pollution, just remember that it isn't nearly as bad as horse pollution. Most auto exhaust pollution is easily removed the first time the wind kicks up or if it rains. The "emissions" left behind by the equine excrement machines are much harder to remove.
As far as the dangers posed by horses, they are much more lethal than the widely feared sharks. Yes, that's right. Throughout history, a lot more people have been killed by horses than by sharks. However, since sharks look much more deadly than horses, people fear them more. The majestic appearing horse will lull you into thinking it is much too noble to do you any harm . . . and then knock you dead with a swift kick to the skull. And why would the "noble" horse do that? Merely because you are there. A pet dog (with the exception of Pit Bulls) has enough sense not to bite the hand that feeds it. No amount of loving care can protect an owner from horse agression.
A big secret about Hollywood cowboy stars is that many of them, with good reason, HATED horses. A good example was John Wayne. He just couldn't stand the damn things. He might have thought horses would be fun to work with early in his career but after enough kicks and throws, the Duke realized that horses were his enemy. Perhaps this is the main reason why Wayne never really got into that whole cowboy shtick during his off-screen time. As soon as the cameras quit rolling during his movie shoots, Wayne would drink whiskey and play poker with John Ford, Ward Bond, Ben Johnson, and the rest of that regular crew. John Wayne was big on boating activities for recreation but NEVER went near a horse unless he had to.
One of the few silver screen cowboys who really loved horses was Roy Rogers. Perhaps Trigger was one of those very rare horses that never turned on its owner. In any event, you would never catch me standing within ten feet of Trigger, not even to visit the stuffed (or as Roy preferred, "mounted") Trigger at the Roy Rogers Museum. Trigger just might be capable of giving me a posthumous kick. I never discount the potential hostility of horses, even from the afterlife.
Even though I am very wary of horses, I am also appreciative of their role in civilization. Horses, until about a hundred years ago, served us well as a means of transportation. To see how important horses have been in human development, take a look at societies lacking horses. Specifically I am referring to American Indians (or Native Americans or whatever the latest PC term happens to be).
The odd thing is that horses actually ORIGINATED on the North American continent and a few of them migrated over to Asia during the last Ice Age when there was a land route over what is now the Bering Strait. A couple of thousand years after those few horses migrated to Asia, all of the millions of horses in North America became extinct. Why? Because the same land route that allowed horses to leave this continent also permitted the ancestors of the American Indians to enter. Once upon this continent, the Indians proceeded to slaughter and eat all the horses until there were no longer any left. Bad move. It never occurred to the Indians that they could jump on top of horses and easily hunt down buffalo which were a lot tastier than some damn horse meat.
You wonder why the Indians never developed the wheel? Well, consider that the wheel originated as a device to roll horse-driven carts. After wheels were used for this purpose, humans went on to develop the wheel for a myriad of mechanical tasks that quickly advanced civilized society.
Because the Indians couldn't figure out that Mother Nature intended for horses to be ridden, not eaten by people, they were unable to develop the wheel or any adequate transportation system that could promote commerce. However, even with this deprivation, Indian civilizations such as the Incas, Mayas, and Aztecs made great strides. But think of how history would have been different if Indians had not wiped out horses about 10,000 years ago. Columbus might have "discovered" America but he would have been met on the beach by Indians armed with 50-caliber machine guns. The beachside conversation when Columbus planted the Spanish flag on October 12, 1492 would have gone something like this:
"We claim this New World in the name of Queen Isabella and King Ferdinand of Spain!"
"Oh yeah? Well we claim your asses in the name of Moctezuma of Tenochtitlan."
"But . . . but we bring you nice little trinkets to trade with you."
"We're really impressed by your trinkets . . . NOT! We already import that cheap crap from China. Now just point us in the direction of this Spain place you just mentioned so we can hop aboard our jet skies and head over there to dictate surrender terms to your Isabella and Ferdinand."
Yes, horses served their purpose for thousands of years . . . until the advent of the automobile. After that, horses became rather unnecessary except as a ready source for dog food or glue. So what saved the speedy thoroughbred horses from extinction? Gambling.
At first, people in the USA had to cross the border to Tijuana to gamble on horses at the Agua Caliente horse track during the Roaring Twenties. Then when the Depression hit, cash-strapped states figured out that taxes on horse race gambling (plus re-legalizing alcohol) would be a great source for revenue. The popularity of horse racing in Depression era America quickly spread across the country which brings us to The Story of Seabiscuit.
It was a wonderful movie. Shirley Temple as the daughter of Seabiscuit's Irish trainer, Barry Fitzgerald, was charming as the love interest of the horse's jockey, Ted Knowles. To hear Fitzgerald's quaint brogue was . . . Oops! Wrong movie. That one was the completely INACCURATE Seabiscuit movie of 1949. The names of all the characters in that movie, except for Seabiscuit and his owner, were completely fictitious and the story had little relation to reality. Rent the video if you must but only to laugh at how ridiculous the Hollywoodized Seabiscuit movie of 1949 was.
So let's move on to the 2003 Seabiscuit. My main comment is that if Chris Cooper is not nominated for the Academy Award for his portrayal of Seabiscuit's trainer (who had not a trace of Irish brogue), Tom Smith, I will send my Algorithm-537 series Terminator into the future to terminate all those Oscar judges. Not only did Chris Cooper deliver a fantastic performance as the soft-spoken Smith but many of the other cast members did so as well including Jeff Bridges as owner Charles Howard, Tobey Maguire as jockey, Red Pollard, and especially William H. Macy for his small comic relief role as radio commentator, Tick Tock McLaughlin.
Even the horse actors portraying Seabiscuit delivered great performances. There were about 10 horses that acted as Seabiscuit and I could definitely see that they utilized Method acting which tells me that several of them must have been graduates of the Lee Strasberg Theatre Institute. Perhaps these horses will appear on the stage on Oscar night to receive an acting award. On the other hand, perhaps this might not be such a good idea given what we now know about the propensity of horses to drop their "seabiscuits" all over the stage.
It was a great idea to use David McCullough as the narrator of Seabiscuit. It gave the film a familiar PBSish feel as McCullough throughout various parts of the movie narrated some fascinating background information about society in black & white vintage film cuts about Depression America so we could see how it related to the Seabiscuit phenomenon back then.
One great surprise of the movie was the excellent supporting role of professional jockey Gary Stevens as George "The Iceman" Woolf who rode the awkward looking Seabiscuit to victory in an epic race against the impressive thoroughbred, War Admiral. I guess it is difficult to find jockey-sized actors in Hollywood but the choice of Stevens turned out to be a good one.
If Seabiscuit had been a fictitious story, it would have been written off as too implausible. Yet, the events of this movie were all too real. Not only did the real Seabiscuit beat War Admiral but he came back to win the Santa Anita $100,000 purse after failing twice before and after a long recuperation from a severely injured leg. Seabiscuit was ridden in that race by a jockey (Pollard) who was told he might never walk (much less ride) again because of his own severe leg injury.
Seabiscuit was a great movie that relied on an inspiring story and great acting rather than on a bunch of intrusive special effects which, unfortunately, are all too common nowadays. This is a film about more than a legendary horse. It is also a story about the people who were brought together by that horse who, like Seabiscuit, prevailed over great adversity. As Seabiscuit's owner Charles Howard said in this movie, "The horse is too small, the jockey is too big, and the trainer is too old. And I'm too dumb to know the difference!"
On my Chad Rating Scale of one to ten chads with ten chads being best, Seabiscuit rides to victory with a PERFECT ten chads. This is the NEW Al Gore keepin' it real and assuring you that no horses were harmed (at least physically) in the making of this film review.
A little hard to discuss horses without discussing horse manure. BTW, when a circus once came to town, they advertised that folks could come and scoop up elephant manure and haul it away. A bunch of pickup trucks did so. Is elephant manure supposed to be good fertilizer?
Also no Jeb Bushes were harmed in the making of this film review.
Watch the final race scene closely. Tipper is the 7 horse.
Anybody that hates horses, I hate. I have three horse and wish I had the room for more. Quite frankly, I'd rather be with horses than people, esp. Democrats.
You're right. From chemistry (for leather tanning) to metals for bits, horseshoes and harness fittings, if we had not partnered with the horse, we would still live in caves. Perhaps the lack of horses is the reason the Native American was so primitive.
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