Cavalos dublês existem há muitos anos ... décadas ... indo até os antigos faroestes.
Este tipo de "queda" leva algum tempo para o cavalo aprender ...
Horsechannel. com: Como Stunt Horse são treinados para cair
Teaching the Fall
Trained falling horses are valuable, and for good reason: It takes a special horse to execute this behavior.
"Think of a falling horse as an acrobat,” says Petrine Mitchum, author of Hollywood Hoofbeats: Trails Blazed Across the Silver Screen. "They need to be athletic and fearless, and also need to have a very trusting nature. So they have to not only have a calm, strong nature but also be willing to place total trust in their trainer.”
Before a horse is asked to fall, the ground is softened with a mixture of dirt, sand and sawdust, according to Mitchum in Hollywood Hoofbeats. With the trainer on the ground, the horse is taught to lie down from a halt. The animal’s left foreleg is tied up, and the trainer stands on the left side of the horse and gently pulls him off balance by pulling the right rein over the saddle. The trainer repeats the process daily until the horse learns the rein cue and no longer needs to have his leg tied. The trainer then teaches the horse to fall with a rider.
"The training is very specialized and not just anyone can do it,” says Mitchum. "It requires extreme patience and confidence, and the ability to read the horse and know what it is capable of, and when to push and when to back off. The trainer also has to have impeccable timing and a certain fearlessness, as well. To deliberately fall down with a 1,000-pound animal in a gallop is not for the faint of heart*.”
* A última parte refere-se a um cavalo em movimento, mas, claramente, um cavalo estacionário seria mais seguro para o dublê
Então, depois de ter treinado seu cavalo, é só uma questão de posicionar a câmera e cronometrar o soco falso para coincidir com o cavalo sendo ordenado a cair ... oh, e um efeito de som.UpRoxx sugere que havia mais de um cavalo disponível
The horse punch, of course, came with some backlash. There were two horses on set that were trained to fall down, but that didn’t stop animal rights activists from sending Mel Brooks and the studio angry letters about the horse punch.