NATURE HORSE POWER AMERICAN LEGACIES 1 × 50 min. Written and directed by Eric Bendick 4K, 5.1 and Stereo Executive producers: Birgit Peters, Sabine Holzer American horses are icons. Mustang. closest genetic link to the original Spanish Appaloosa. Morgan. Quarterhorse. Even stock. With the return of American horses, their names suggest a timeless power. the stage was set for a new generation of American breeds. orsepower that shaped a nation. A nation whose demands shaped A combination of natural and artificial NATURE them. Each has a unique story to selection, accident, and rare fortune tell. Born of legendary historical created the wide spectrum of American Hmoments, charismatic figures, and singular horses we know today. Emerging from places, this documentary takes us on a regional patterns of work, culture, tradi- journey tracing the emergence of these tion, and geography, these signature A co-production of THIRTEEN Productions LLC and Terra Mater Factual Studios Productions LLC and Terra A co-production of THIRTEEN breeds over time. But the work to under- breeds have each made their mark in stand, create, and maintain their legacies history. From the Appaloosa, bred and in association with PBS, CPB and WNET produced by Grizzly Creek Films is not over. Today’s horse trainers are as revered by the Nez Perce tribe, to the diverse as the horses they care for. Their American Quarterhorse, perfectly engi- passion is unbridled — for they continue neered to work the open range, to the in the long tradition of innovation and Morgan Horse, whose underdog story is husbandry that is now part of the very as legendary as they come. And, of course, fabric of America. the Mustang — whose wild behavior is now being understood for the first time. The origin story of American horses can be Viewed individually, each breed and each traced all the way back to the 50-million- exemplary horse is also a living work of art. year-old fossil beds of Polecat Bench, On a cinematic canvas where the play of Wyoming. Here, the discovery of the light, atmosphere, mood, and environment earliest known fossils of Dawn Horse coalesce, we discover intimate relationships reveal that the ancestors of our contempo- between horse and human, breed and rary horse arose on the North American selector. Whether working cutting cows continent. From these ancient beginnings, in a sagebrush sea, galloping through Equus spread around the globe. But only autumn foliage in New England, or racing a few miles from the site of Dawn Horse, across the Utah desert on the Pony Express a herd of wild Mustangs now roams the Trail, these are the vivid scenes and rugged Pryor mountains. These horses are unforgettable moments which bring the descendants of the earliest horses to return natural history of these icons to life. to American soil. Arriving aboard ships of Spanish explorers, horses reclaimed North These are the stories of American horses — America. The Pryor Mustangs, isolated in and true Horse Power, brought to the this range for four-hundred years, are the screen. NATURE www.terramater.com Terra Mater Factual Studios GmbH Wambachergasse 2, 1130 Vienna phone +43-1-87003-0, [email protected]/ Austria #terramatters.