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Clip description
Young Black Beauty’s contentment is challenged by his angry stablemate, Ginger, who is very mistrustful of humans. This good life will not last for ever, she explains. A horse’s fortune is always dependent on the master, who can sell a horse at any time. She tells of some of her experiences, including the terrors of the dreaded ‘bearing rein’. Black Beauty is dismayed by her pessimistic attitude.
Curator’s notes
Ginger voices many of the concerns about the predominantly uncaring attitude of many people towards horses at this time. Here she explains her justifiable bitterness and also highlights the fragility of a horse’s existence, dependent as it is on the needs and whims of its master.
Horses were central to everyday life and their maltreatment in public was a common occurrence. With the huge success of this story, author Anna Sewell achieved her desire to draw attention to the unregulated plight of horses, to encourage the development of legislation prohibiting cruelty to animals, and to see improved social and business practices in using horses. As seen in this clip, Sewell particularly focuses on the fashion at the time for ‘check’ or ‘bearing’ reins which cruelly forced a carriage horse’s head up and backwards at an unnatural angle. Here, as in all instances where this cruel practice is implemented in Sewell’s story, it is on the orders of fashionable women who demand their horse’s heads be held high and proud.
When published, the novel was unique in telling the story of an animal in the first person, a powerful technique which, for the first time, brought readers much closer to understanding and empathising with an animal’s feelings. In an interesting technical approach in this animation, only the human characters have mouth movement synched with their dialogue; and in contrast, all horses’ dialogue is delivered with no mouth movement – as ‘thoughts’. While it seems odd to begin with as we are now so accustomed to the phenomena of animals talking in animated films, it also helps this film remain true to the original story.
