Over 35,000 years in the making, the love story between humans and horses runs deep. While we depended, until the Industrial Age, on tame horses for everything from plowing our fields to riding us into battle, their undomesticated counterparts, wild horses, have long fed our dreams and symbolized our common longing for independence, strength, intelligence and grace.
Get your gallop on and enjoy these these 3 top-notch documentaries on man’s “other” best friend.
Corral
Corral, Colin Low, provided by the National Film Board of Canada
Few images, across cultures and continents, are as universal in appeal as that of a herd of wild horses tearing across the landscape. Get your fill with this stunning Colin Low doc in which a bona fide cowboy rounds up a handsome bunch across the spectacular foothills of Alberta. Will he succeed in saddling and riding one? Watch and see.
The Horse Boy
In this doc, wild horses are more than a powerful archetype, they’re a hope for a cure. When writer and former horse trainer Rupert Isaacson’s then two-year-old son was diagnosed with autism, him and his wife sought the best possible medical care for their son, but traditional therapies didn’t seem to help much. Then they discovered that Rowan has a profound affinity for animals — particularly horses — and the family set off on a quest for a possible cure… in the shape of a horseback adventure across Mongolia. The doc, part travel adventure, part insight into shamanic tradition and part intimate look at the autistic mind, is a stunning exposé on family, horses and thinking outside the box to heal the ones we love.
Bronco Busters
Bronco Busters, , provided by the National Film Board of Canada
“If he breaks your neck, you’re disqualified!” It’s man vs. mount out this deliciously retro doc that gives us front seats to the Calgary Stampede in the mid-1940s. Here again, the “rolling foothills of Alberta” have purveyed wild colts and horses that experienced cowboys will try their best to ride – risking life and limb in the bumpy process. Hang tight.
Corral is a beautiful film.