Horse Movies

Dear Wal,

If you hadn't guessed it already, I love horses. So it's perfectly plausible that I also love horse movies. They were my childhood. Spirit: Stallion of the Cimarron, The Black Stallion, Black Beauty, Dreamer, Man From Snowy River...the list goes on. I love these movies not only because they are full of fantastic horses, gorgeous horses, but also because they are uplifting. While they may be sad, there is always an uplifting moral to the story. In Spirit, it was freedom. In the Black Stallion, it was the triumph of the mythic, the ancient, over the modern. In Black Beauty, it was a happy ending. Likewise for Man From Snowy River. In Dreamer, it was triumph over an impossible
I always cry during these movies. It doesn't matter how happy some parts may be, there is always a part where the horse and the rider get really close to giving up. Then they pull themselves out of the depths of despair and rise to the occasion. That's the way it always happens. It doesn't matter that I know this, it doesn't change anything at all about my reaction. I still sit through the whole movie, bawling my eyes out. I went to see Secretariat when it came out, because I consider that horse to be one of the greatest horses of all time, and I cried all through that movie. Every scene. Didn't matter what it was about. I was also alone in the theater with a bunch of older people, who had probably actually seen the horse race in his prime. I swear, I was the only young person in there. Things don't look good for modern horse racing, although personally that's an institution I wouldn't mind seeing go down in flames. What they do to those horses borders on abuse. In fact, by any other definition it would abuse. Tangent. I'll rant about the injustices of horse racing some other time.

Do you cry during horse movies? If not, what movies make you cry? Comment below.

/endrant

P.S. We watched Flika this evening. I've seen the movie about a thousand times, and I still cried.