Somewhere an Equestrian Is Crying
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"You cannot gallop them for hours. They’ll collapse. The best way to make time in the saddle is to alternate paces, and have a remount or two trailing behind, and allow the animals reasonable rest. Don’t let your steed eat or drink indiscriminately; it’s likely to bloat and become helpless. In fact, it’s a rather fragile creature, requiring close attention--for example, rubdowns after hard exertion--if it isn’t to fall sick and perhaps die on you. It’s also lazy, stupid, and sometimes malicious." |
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No, not a denizen of Equestria.
Horses in fiction tend to be impossibly cool already. They can gallop for miles on end without any sign of fatigue. And sometimes they require minimum care, or handled in ways that are downright unsafe without any ill effects.
Somewhere an Equestrian Is Crying occurs whenever horses in fiction are mishandled, not due to ignorance on the part of a character but rather on the part of the author. Ask most real life equestrians and they'll tell you horses can be surprisingly fragile creatures that require careful management and training. Without it, bad things happen.
This trope can also extend into fallacies regarding equine biology. For instance, if you ever see a horse gagging in a cartoon, it falls into this trope. Horses in real life cannot vomit, which can lead to deadly bouts of colic should they eat rotten, moldy, or even excessive quantities of food.
Finally, in fiction it seems like anyone presented with a horse will prove capable of riding it. This despite riding being an athletic discipline that can take years to master. There's a reason riding is an Olympic sport, after all.
Let's try to keep the examples here to fictional ones. While there are definite cases of real life abuse and neglect due to their owners' ignorance, most of these tend to have consequences. (British Napoleonic cavalry, for example, had a tendency to charge recklessly until their horses were 'blown' and unable to move at more than a walk, which made both horse and rider terribly vulnerable to any counter-charge - a tendency Wellington despised.) In fictionland, however, the ill-treatment never produces bad results. Super trope of Automaton Horses. See Horsing Around for when the horses do protest their treatment. For Somewhere An Equestrian Is Smiling, see Invulnerable Horses.
Examples of Somewhere an Equestrian Is Crying include:
Anime and Manga
- Sengoku Basara is probably not meant to be taken seriously when dealing with horses (or at all, really), as the horses tend to charge down extremely steep cliffs in several scenes, and in one scene horses are shown to literally fly over castle walls. Moreover, the horses are never shown to react to any situation and are essentially tools for the characters to use to fast travel. Date's crew actually use horses to simulate a motorcycle gang without the motorcycles. This show is also the Trope Namer for My Horse Is a Motorbike.
- Averted in Sword of the Stranger. Nanashi takes great care of his horse, including riding it at a pace as to not wear it out and ultimately showing the horse general affection such as petting and feeding it. Kotaro even asks why he takes such good care of the horse, to which Nanashi responds that riding a well-kept horse just feels good, like 'flying in the sky'. A horse used by a messenger also ends up collapsing due to hard riding and exhaustion.
Fan Works
- One of many, many things My Inner Life is notorious for is the author's apparent conviction that you can "boot the horse in the legs to go faster." That would take serious talent to even attempt.
Film
- Did You Hear About the Morgans?? features a scene in which Hugh Grant and Sarah Jessica Parker flee from a hitman on horseback. Here's the problem: they had no time to tack the horse up from when they spotted the hitman to when they had to make their escape. Which means the horse was standing in its stall with a saddle, breastplate, and bridle on. The saddle and breastplate being on a stalled horse is plausible, but avoided if possible; the bridle being on is a definite no.
- Something To Talk About co-starred Robert Duvall, who actually knew how to ride, and so insisted on doing his own stunts. The problem here lies with the end competition. Identified as a Grand Prix event, that means the fences he'd be jumping would be approximately 5' high. They actually look about that height when some of the stunt riders are jumping. But it takes considerable training and skill to jump one fence of that height, let alone 8 to 12 of them. So all the fences were obviously lowered to about 2'6" for Duvall's turn.
- The horse in Disney's Mulan falls over cliffs and at one point is saved in midair from a fall by a rope around its middle ...all with no ill effects. In reality it's very likely that the stunts pulled by the horse would result in broken legs or colic, which are very often fatal for the horse, or worse.
- In Der Schuh des Manitu, Winnetouch's horse Jacqueline has to vomit after walking too fast. This movie being a comedy, this was a play on the the German phrase: "Ich hab' auch schon Pferde kotzen gesehen." ("I've seen horses puke as well.") Since horses cannot vomit, this means: "Very likely." or "I doubt what you're telling me but I'm too polite to say that to you directly."
- Neatly averted in She Wore a Yellow Ribbon, where the love interest character teases a cavalry officer about all the time they spend walking and he pedantically explains that they have to do this to keep the horses healthy. Since having a horse was essentially the whole difference between being a foot soldier and a cavalryman it behooved them to keep their horses as healthy and rested as possible.
- Make no mistake, Maximus, the horse from Disney's Tangled is pure distilled awesome, but the sheer amount of times he should have broken every one of his legs in massive jumps and drops defies belief.
- Averted in True Grit; when Rooster Cogburn tries to get Mattie to a doctor after she's bitten by a snake, he makes his horse gallop so hard that the horse dies of exhaustion.
- The charge of the Rohirrim at Helm's Deep in The Two Towers is down a slope so steep most people would hesitate to walk down it, let alone have 2,000 horses charge down it in a tightly packed formation.
- Equestrians everywhere probably yelled back at the screen "Give him his head!" during Arwen's desperate ride with Frodo in Fellowship of the Ring. When you're being chased by Ringwraiths you let your horse stretch out his neck and run like holy hell.
- A lot of horse handling in Spirit: Stallion of the Cimarron. Especially when Spirit first comes to the Army fort and they attempt to break him. The way they tied him down to brand him was inaccurate and hazardous. Also, even in the old West, people were wise enough to not mount a completely wild horse with full tack, in a large, rectangular arena. It's practically suicide. The way Spirit juggled them, most of the riders should have broken bones, if not necks and skulls. And of course, the first thing an actual regiment would have done to a mount prospect: geld him. The Native American version of breaking him to ride was a lot more like methods of Western-style breaking in use today, although nothing like the way Plains Native Americans trained horses, so the creators clearly had some idea what was correct and probably did it the other way make the soldiers look like jerks or idiots.
Literature
- Averted in Belisarius Series. The title character when he was in India as a spy was at pains to buy up a whole string of horses to escape with to make sure that only one at a time would have to carry a heavy man on his back at a time. The author also notes that horses are not really suicidally brave and cinematically spectactular cavalry charge takes work to set up and you cannot just ram horses into a line of men.
- Averted in Black Beauty, which was written because (at the time) this trope was seen as Truth in Television. Any abuse or misuse of horses leads to realistic consequences. Horses being delicate creatures, that's ugly consequences.
- Robert Jordan did at least some research for The Wheel of Time books (especially as the series went on and on and on). Characters are shown to and talk about caring for horses at least to a decent degree. Most is shown from the perspective of Perrin (A blacksmith) perspective, and Mat (son of a horse trader).
- Of particular note is a scene in Chapter 20 of Book 12. Vanin, a scout, has just let Mat know that they are about twenty days away from Caemlyn. A group of Aes Sedai wishes to strike out on their own, assuming their small group can reach the city quicker than Mat's thousands strong Band of the Red Hand.
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Vanin: Well, if I were on my own and I didn't care if my horses died, I could make it in seven days. |
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- Averted throughout the Wild Mage series, by Tamora Pierce. Daine is careful to care for her horse, alternate paces, and feed it discriminately.
- Averted hard in the Ranger's Apprentice series by John Flanagan. They alternate horses, rest them after longer runs, and carefully intersperse galloping with slower paces.
- In the Western Rattler by Barry Andrew Chambers his horse is generally treated like a dog that you put a saddle on. This initially looks like a simple case of All Animals Are Dogs but veers off into into potential animal abuse when the horse is fed chocolate. Chocolate, depending on the amount and percent of the cocoa in the mix, can be extremely toxic to horses. He also feeds, or allows others to feed, his horse pancakes, a blueberry pie, and beef jerky at various points. No one finds anything wrong with this. Additionally, when offered the chance to stable his horse and have it properly groomed and fed, he declines and ties it up outside still saddled for at least a day, possibly longer.
- Averted and lampshaded in C. S. Lewis' The Horse and His Boy, in which the talking horse himself insists that "galloping for a night and a day" is nonsense and they will have to alternately walk and trot.
- Averted and lampshaded half to death in The Name of the Wind by Patrick Rothfuss, in a long and detailed description of Kvothe selecting, buying, and pacing a horse through a sudden long journey. (Everything is explained in a tone of "you probably don't know this, but" which is fine for the modern reader, but in-story, Kvothe is recording his life history in a world where horses are the only option for fast travel. This would come across as "you probably don't know this, but a car needs an oil change every 3 months or so.")
- Similarly averted in Mercedes Lackey's Valdemar novels, where the horselike Companions can indeed run for a night and a day—which proves that they are magical creatures and merely horselike. In one instance an experienced horseman Herald rides a mare and notes all the ways she differs from his Companion, including balking at close paths and grazing at every possible opportunity.
- In the second Last Herald-Mage book she even comes out and says when the Companions have to run all night the Heralds are keeping them going by magic.
- In the Christian fairy tales The Princess and the Three Knights by Karen Kingsbury and The Squire and the Scroll by Jennie Bishop, horses are treated like medieval versions of motorcycles.
- In Graceling by Kristin Cashore, main character Kasta, on a fairly routine basis, rides horses flat out at night because it's "only" five or six more hours/leagues until they get to their destination. One of the other characters even asks her if she's "still ruining the horses."
- Probably the most blatant example is in Eragon. Paolini seems to be under the impression that horses can gallop for hundreds of leagues for days on end on nothing but a few crops of desert grass and sips of dirty water.
- Averted in A Song of Ice and Fire: People do a lot of riding horses hard to get to their destination. Their horses do a lot of dying.
- Justified and lampshaded in The Lord of the Rings, where Gandalf's impossibly Cool Horse Shadowfax is able to gallop for miles upon miles because he is just that awesome. He is said to be the last of a breed of especially badass horses with divine ancestry, and a groom comments with amazement when Shadowfax arrives in Minas Tirith that he looks like he's spoiling for a race rather than just coming from a long journey. Bottom line, Tolkien knew his stuff, and was acknowledging that no ordinary horse could do this.
- Low budget translations of Pony Tales into Finnish have a certain set of expectable translation mess-ups; one of the most common ones is when a horse is tacked up for riding—and the word used is translated into "harnessed". Which means tacking a horse for driving.
- Pony Tales in general usually avert this by a large margin, and often run into the opposite direction—the stories do sometimes contain outright expo material about whatever topic is tangentially remote to the scene—from equine nutrition to riding technique.
- Averted in the Green Rider novels. In the third book Karigan chews out a recruit for pushing his horse too hard.
- This trop is discussed in The Tough Guide to Fantasyland, horses are treated like bicycles and Diana Wynne Jones concludes that they breed by pollination.
Live-Action TV
- Pretty much every Western TV series you could care to name treated horses as vehicles or scenery.
- A lot of Western, Medieval or Fantasy shows also lead to instances of Somewhere An Equestrian Is Laughing - since most actors can't ride, they're shot on horses trained to be bombproof (i.e. happy to stand still for ages and nigh-impossible to startle). This leads to scenes such as horses dozing off while surrounded by a large and noisy army, being keenly interesting in supposedly unremarkable scenery such as walls, or every horse in the area arbitrarily looking at exactly the same spot (probably the trainer with a handful of oats standing just off-screen).
- One episode of Royal Pains focused on the horse show circuit in the Hamptons. While this is a prominent competition, some of the details of life on the circuit were fudged. One of the side characters in the episode is a trainer with a string of ten or so horses. He incorrectly identified a branded warmblood as a thoroughbred in one scene. Half of what he and his daughter said about training horses was gibberish, and neither seemed to have a clear idea on what it took to get to the Olympics.
- On Two Broke Girls Max and Caroline keep Caroline's horse for months in the backyard of their rundown house in New York City. The horse does not get much exercise and it's a wonder they can afford to feed it. They finally find a proper stable for the horse when winter comes. The incompetence of the characters can be justified but the horse should have been in much worse shape, sick or even dead.
Video Games
- Red Dead Redemption, while probably not meant to be taken seriously, features Automaton Horses, and a horse-breaking mini-game that's laughably dangerous to anyone actually familiar with backing horses for the first time. For one thing, you'd never attempt it on a newly lassoed feral horse in the middle of the freaking wilderness.
- The Red Dead Redemption minigame is actually an aversion, although perhaps unintentionally; lassoing a wild horse (yes, in the middle of the freaking wilderness), jumping on, and then just riding it out was in fact a method of horse-breaking used in the old west. They used a lot of methods now considered impractical and/or cruel and/or dangerous to man and beast.
- The game also likes to use a lot of breed names for its horses. While the Hungarian Half-Bred and the Dutch Warmblood are real breeds, it's unlikely they would have been running around the frontier.
- You also leave your horses fully-tacked up at hitching posts around the game world. Not a good thing to try in real life, as it's asking for a horse to colic, tie up, or develop some pretty bad fungus.
- Mount & Blade gives you horses with infinite stamina and lets you control them perfectly in combat even if they're just 'average' horses and not highly trained warhorses. They're immortal too; if yours gets impaled on a lance by a charging knight it'll get better for the next battle. For what it's worth, if yours collapses during battle, there's a chance it'll become crippled and therefore useless for fighting.
- Epona, Link's horse in The Legend of Zelda: Ocarina of Time, is similarly invincible (as are you when riding) and while she has a stamina system, it runs on carrots... She also won't object if you shoot her in the head with arrows (she does whinny at you, though).
Western Animation
- The Pun at the beginning of this article notwithstanding, the ponies in My Little Pony: Friendship Is Magic are, in a word, unkillable. Maybe that's because the show technically has a small amount of continuity and characters will need to survive to see the next episode, (or maybe it's because it's a cartoon intended for children). Every single member of the mane cast has gone through their fair share of misfortunes and turned up completely intact, from Twilight Sparkle getting the contents of an entire house dumped on her head to Fluttershy telling off a cockatrice while its gaze was turning her to stone. The ultimate prize, however has to go to Rainbow Dash's supersonic right-angle turn near the end of "Sonic Rainboom." One scientific analysis concluded that RD probably topped 1670 Gs when executing this turn. Then again, in a world where pegasi control the weather and walk on clouds, it's hard to say that these winged horses would have had any need or regard for the laws of physics!
- Also, in "Applebuck Season" ponies appear to be vomiting after eating ill-prepared cupcakes made by overworked Applejack.
- Downplayed in the episode "Baby Cakes". The twin baby ponies Pound Cake and Pumpkin Cake are shown as newborns in the beginning of the episode. They are swaddled in blankets and portrayed as being just as delicate and helpless as newborn infants. If they were anything like real life horses, they would have been standing up and walking just minutes after birth, like with many species of ungulates (hoofed animals). This way, they would have been able to follow the herd and nurse from their mother. However, the two babies are later shown walking at one month old, as real baby horses would be able, but human babies would not.
- Really, these are magical talking ponies, in a world where other animals are semi-intelligent, yet unable to care for themselves, and there would be no day-night cycle if it weren't for the ponies actively lowering and raising the sun and moon. These things are horse-shaped, but the similarities pretty much end there.
- Although not horses, the Deer King and his men one episode of Hero: 108 grunt, neigh and whinny JUST LIKE HORSES, even though they sound more like this.
