This article first appeared in the August 2020 digital edition of Equestrian Life. To see what’s in the current issue, click here. 

Teresa Palmer went through a gruelling training program as part of her role portraying Michelle Payne in “Ride Like a Girl”

© RLAG

Horsing around on the big screen

By Suzy Jarratt

Horses have lapped up the limelight ever since movies were invented. Whether in a classic feature film or as extras in wild westerns, they’ve hammed it up and stolen scenes along with the greatest of actors.

Horses were an integral part of hundreds of early moving pictures. The very first Australian film was of the 1896 Melbourne Cup, recorded on a clumsy, hand-cranked camera by Maurice Sestier.

Sestier couldn’t cover the actual race because the horses were too fast; instead he filmed them in the saddling paddock and then captured them crossing the finishing line. Newhaven won the Cup by six lengths. In between are many jerky shots of prominent ladies and gentlemen staring suspiciously at his curious contraption.

In America, The Great Train Robbery was released in 1903 about the exploits of a bunch of horsemen overtaking and robbing a train. Running for 12 minutes, it is considered one of the earliest silent motion pictures to tell a story.

Back in Australia, the world’s first full-length feature film was the hour-long The Story of the Kelly Gang, made in Melbourne, in 1906. Naturally, it featured horses. A stream of westerns and bushranging sagas was to follow.

So, without the horse those film industry pioneers would have faded into a celluloid sunset. Let’s look at some of the great moments in equine cinema.

Read the full article in the August 2020 issue of Equestrian Life magazine here.

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