Years Before Near-Tragic Horse Riding Incident, Arnold Schwarzenegger Reveals How He Mastered Equestrian Skills for a Famous Role

Arnold Schwarzenegger hung up his boots in professional bodybuilding for good in 1980, after finding enormous success in it. He wanted to break into Hollywood, but the road wasn’t an easy one. Luckily, Conan the Barbarian, the movie that gave him the big breakthrough, came his way. He trained very hard for the movie, which included mastery of swords and also equestrian lessons. This made Schwarzenegger a more-than-decent horserider, but as luck would have it, he would suffer an accident a few years down the line while riding a horse.

Since the character Conan required such high-end horseriding skills, Schwarzenegger trained for many hours for months on end with his horse. When the movie was released with resounding success, it was all worth it.

Arnold Schwarzenegger wanted to feel acquainted with his horse

Arnold Schwarzenegger’s latest Netflix docuseries ‘Arnold’ released this month, and various tidbits about the bodybuilder-cum-actor-cum-politician’s life have come to the forefront. In episode 2, ‘Actor’, Schwarzenegger said, “Hours and hours of horseback training, because I wanted to feel one with the horse”. Since Schwarzenegger had to do all his stunts, that amount of dedication was required from him to bring authenticity to the character.

Schwarzenegger revealed that since no one was as big as him, he was bound to perform his stunts, and they were rough. His experience of learning horseback riding during the shoot of this film would come in handy for one of his next films a few years later. However, his experience wasn’t pleasant there either.

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Arnold Schwarzenegger played Lord Kalidor in Red Sonje (1985). The character too rode horses, and Schwarzenegger’s previous learning made it an easy choice for him to ride this horse. Except, this time, the horse slipped in the muddy locales of shooting and fell forward. Schwarzenegger fell too and was unconscious for a while.

He never compromised on preparation for a film

Arnold Schwarzenegger suffered a nasty fall during shooting Red Sonje, whereas surprisingly during Conan the Barbarian, he came off unharmed from any horseback riding scenes. Yet, such cannot be said regarding his other scenes. Since Schwarzenegger did all of his stunts and the director John Milius was insistent on retakes for the perfect shot, it was physically demanding for the Austrian Oak. Schwarzenegger eventually bled in a lot of the scenes for real.

No amount of bleeding stopped Arnold Schwarzenegger from becoming the next big thing. He powered through the shoot, which also involved Samurai training with swords. He wanted to understand the movement of the sword as well as that of a rider on horseback. Schwarzenegger gave it his all in preparation for the film.

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