Читать книгу Finding the Missed Path. The Art of Restarting Horses онлайн

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I stood with Rusty just out of the line of the shot as the cameras rolled and John stumbled out of the shack. He came out so awkwardly that Rusty immediately went on alert, head high and nostrils flared. John hesitated at the door for a second before he began to drag himself in Rusty’s direction. I moved slightly so Rusty could see me. He glanced in my direction, relaxed, then looked back at John and never moved. John dragged himself up to Rusty, then while wrapping his arms around his neck, petted him as if Rusty was going to be his salvation. The scene went so well that it only had to be shot twice.

The last of Rusty’s scenes that day was one for which we had actually planned on using a different horse. It was one of the most important horse scenes in the film and was to be the movie’s opening scene where the story’s main horse character, a Mustang looking relatively thin and injured, is standing in the open desert at night by himself.

Throughout the movie this character is played by my horse, Rocky, who was in such good shape during filming that even with makeup and special lighting he still looked much too healthy for this particular scene. Because Rusty has basically the same coloring and markings as Rocky, and because Rusty at the time was roughly 75 or so pounds lighter than Rocky, we decided to use Rusty as the stand in.