Wayne's Horse Walking Backwards
Did John Wayne really drive the horse, or it's a special trained horse ?
A funny sequence.
... to walk a horse backwards, although the horse doesn't necessarily have to be specially trained. (I learned this from Sir Walter Scott's "Ivanhoe", where the eponymous hero walks his horse backwards down a ramp at a jousting match, earning the admiration of the crowd.)
"As quickly as you can ... snatch the pebble from my hand." Honga-Hula!
Standard training for most saddle horses is to "back" on command. That appaloosa stud that the Duke rode in this picture did a fine job of backing for a fairly long distance. That horse was owned by the producer Howard Hawks. He wanted to use the picture as a way to promote the horse. In my opinion that animal was too small for the Duke. After becoming a major star, Wayne was never one to ride flashy horses in his pictures and looked better on a taller mount. His horse in Eldorado was an exception.
shareWatching now and I noticed the horse appeared smaller than what a man his size would ride. Great info you included.
shareI agree; I always thought Wayne looked way too big for that horse.
sharethat wasn't wayne on the horse during the walk back, that was a stunt/double
shareWatch again. You're dead wrong.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=V76RjyRku1Q
That wasn't a stunt double. That was the Duke himself riding that horse backwards.
shareYes, that was definitely Wayne himself backing the horse. It's really not that big of a deal. I took up riding recently, never having been on a horse before, and was taught how to back by about the second or third lesson.
shareYeah, the horse seemed too small for someone the size of John Wayne, at least as far as regular riding goes or taking long rides, like traveling out to that ranch.
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