War Horse responds to a fan letter:

Dear Fan,

Thank you for your interest in the movie War Horse. I am glad it has inspired you to learn more about my exploits during the Great War. Most people are more interested in the human side of the story- I’m glad to see you “bucking” this trend. Pun intended.

However, rather than watching the movie, I implore you to pick up my memoir, Give that Horse a Hand: the War Horse Story, at any local bookstore worth a damn and read what really happened.

Because I must inform you that I have been to the initial screening of War Horse and I must say that I am disgusted. The characters are unsympathetic and quite unlikeable. The scenes of war are nothing like the real experience of being there. They show me as “brave”, but in truth I was quite terrified the entire time. I am a horse and, like all wars, this wasn’t my fight. I took no sides except to just stay alive and run like hell (cue epic music).

And the special effects are grotesque. The scene where they replace my front hoof with a human hand is completely unrealistic. My hand looks nothing like that Frankenstein concoction!

I must also tell you that the story presented is almost unbelievable had I not lived through some parts of it. And the acting is atrocious. When they get that two-bit bag of dog food that plays me to recite a single line of the regurgitated tripe that they call a script, he sounds more like Mr. Ed than yours truly. I have always been told that I have a voice like Morgan Freeman, not like a simpering gelding. And why is it that the role of the Equus always so stereo-typed? Like my friend Flicka used to say, not every horse speaks with a drawl and wears a common snaffle bridle. Show some respect, Hollywood!

In the final scenes, where they show my “death” – hello, I’m alive – the screen is overwhelmingly thick with every movie cliché in the book. My “rider’ has tracks of tears that run down over the mud on his face like a Mississippi bayou after a levee break, bellowing and spitting a final farewell that is intended only to manipulate the audience into “feeling” in the final moments of a story that lacks any feelings at all.

In any case, if you do see the movie, please see it at the matinee and make sure to get a few drinks in you first. You will need it. I wore blinders and a feedbag and it wasn’t enough.

Yours in oats and whey,

Joey “War Horse” the Horse

He can do more than just simple arithmetic now.

Reprinted with the permission of Joey the Horse