Wild Horses

See here

10 White Horses Observable in the South of England

1. Uffington White Horse Oxfordshire 1000 BC
2. Westbury White Horse Wiltshire 1778
3. Cherhill White Horse Wiltshire 1780
4. Marlborough White Horse Wiltshire 1804
5. Osmington White Horse Dorset 1808
6. Alton Barnes White Horse Wiltshire 1812
7. Hackpen White Horse Wiltshire 1838
8. Broad Town White Horse Wiltshire 1864
9. Pewsey White Horse Wiltshire 1937
10. Devizes White Horse Wiltshire 1999

10 Fictional Horses

1. Black Beauty (Black Beauty - there are many others)
2. Boxer (Animal Farm)
3. Bree or Hwin (The horse and his boy - there are Molly and Clover too)
4. Joey (War horse)
5. Shadowfax (Lord of the Rings - there are many others)
6. Dobbin (Wooden Tops)
7. Bulls eye (ToyStory)
8. Artax (Neverending Story)
9. Silver (Lone Ranger)
10. Hercules (Steptoe and Son)

10 Famous Horses

Rick Weston from UK, CC BY 2.0 <https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/2.0>,
via Wikimedia Commons

1. Seabiscuit

2. Red Rum (as seen above and who I once met, he was opening a fete)
3. Shergar
4. Bucephalus (Alexander the Great's favourite)
5. Desert Orchid
6. Black Bess (Dick Turpin's horse)
7. Frankel
8. Incitatus (made a Senator by Emperor Caligula)
9. Copenhagen (Wellington's horse at Waterloo)
10. Champion (Gene Autrey's horse. I watched Champion the wonder horse on Saturdays as a kid)

To be Frankel

RacingKel, CC BY 2.0 <https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/2.0>,
via Wikimedia Commons

My wife and I did something unusual last Saturday. We sat down to watch a horse race on TV. It was the Champion Stakes at Ascot. We had heard people raving on the radio in the morning going on about Frankel and it turned out to be convenient for us to watch the race, which he won pretty easily, despite being last out of the starting gate. That's 14 wins out of 14 starts. There is something wonderful about seeing someone, or on this occasion, some horse ,as good as everyone says he is. My old dad would have enjoyed seeing it. The Queen certainly did.

Just noticed I blogged on Frankel once before here.

War Horse

We went to see War Horse last Saturday. Based on the children's novel of the same name by Michael Morpurgo, first published in 1982 and the 2007 stage adaptation, also of the same name it is set during World War I. Stephen Spielberg directed, the varied cast being very competent but not that well known (although I spotted Dominic Cumberbatch in there). Some 14 horses were used apparently including a main one who also took the part of Sea Biscuit.

I've not seen the stage play but I know that in the book the horse tells the story. That dramatic method was thankfully dropped. The story is told from the horse's point of view but not sentimentally or ridiculously.

We all enjoyed it (ages 10-52) and I found myself close to tears on more than one occasion as the frailty of the human condition was played out against the back cloth of poverty and war and we saw the courage, cowardice and a certain amount of madness typical of life here on earth. The certificate is 12a but that is only in light of the violent war scenes rather than anything else. Great film for the whole family and a wonderful opener for endless discussion on man and animals, war and peace, human strengths and weaknesses, etc.

More here.

10 Famous horses

1. Black Bess - Dick Turpin
2. Bucephalus - Alexander the Great
3. Incitatus - Caligula
4. Champion -Gene Autrey
5. Trigger - Roy Rogers
6. Silver* - Lone Ranger
7. Copenhagen - Duke of Wellington
8. Burmese - Queen Elizabeth II
9. Marengo -Napoloeon
10. Lamri -King Arthur

(*There were in fact two horses [see pics] as in the show Clayton Moore used both 'White Cloud' and 'Tarzan's white banner')