I am smarter than a lot of animals. I’m not overconfident enough to definitively declare that I am smarter than all animals, but I feel like there’s not a lot of hubris involved in saying that I could solve puzzles faster and hold forth more authoritatively on a variety of topics than 99% of the animals on the planet. Am I smarter than every horse? I couldn’t say. I’ve seen those videos of horses that can count and I’m not willing to rule out that, somewhere out there, there’s a horse that can do multivariate calculus better than I can. What I will posit, though, is that I am smarter than these 10 movie horses, to varying degrees.
From hyperintelligent magical fantasy steeds to mundane horses from award-winning dramas, here is a bunch of famous movie horses ranked in order of how much smarter I am than them.
10. Brego, The Lord of the Rings
Pictured: The life-giving kiss of a horse.
While I am still substantially smarter than this horse, Brego is by far the smartest horse on this list. Set loose by Aragorn after he was driven mad with grief over the loss of his former owner Théodred, Brego returned the favour by nudging the presumed-dead Aragorn awake upon finding him floating unconscious in a river. Aragorn returned that favour by once again committing Brego to servitude, despite saying that the horse had “seen enough of war” a short time earlier. Not only was he smart enough to save the second handsomest man in Middle Earth (Celeborn can get it), Brego was also smart enough to decide not to go into a mountain hideout filled with murderous criminal skeleton ghosts. Good call, mate.
While clever for a horse, I would wager that I have read a number of books and watched a number of documentaries that would make Brego’s head spin. I am smarter than this fictional horse.
9. Philippe, Beauty and the Beast
One could argue that in the 1991 film Beauty and the Beast, Philippe is shown to be demonstrably smarter than a human being, urging Belle‘s father to take the obviously less murder-looking path to the fair (ultimately failing). While he might be smarter than one person, he’s certainly not smarter than me – I doubt he could even begin to articulate a rudimentary grasp on science, philosophy, and engineering and other things of that nature. Philippe demonstrates both analytical intelligence (from his ability to assess situations and interpret instructions) and emotional intelligence (displaying sympathy for the injured Beast, despite his terrifying appearance), putting him nowhere near the top of the list, but I am still certainly more intelligent than he is.
8. Shadowfax, The Lord of the Rings
Sure, Shadowfax is a magical horse that can understand human speech, but you know who else can understand human speech? You guessed correctly: it’s me. His magical lineage makes him far smarter than an ordinary horse, but by no means does that make him smarter than me. Putting aside the practical issues of turning pages with hoofs, I doubt he even has the ability to read a book – and I’ve read several.
7. The Horse of a Different Colour, The Wizard of Oz
Pictured: A horse that bloody loves the attention.
I am the first to admit that I am not able to magically change the colour of my skin at will. I’m not ashamed of that. I’m perfectly happy for this multichromatic horse and its peculiar gift, but do we measure intelligence by the ability of a being to change its colour palette? Do we consider the chameleon or the cuttlefish the smartest creature on the planet? Absolutely not. Not a single one of the higher order primates has chromatophores and yet those are the animals we can teach sign language to. Razzle dazzle is all good, but I absolutely have a higher IQ than this flashy show-off.
6. Khartoum, The Godfather
I’ve never won a horse race, sure, but there’s also something else I’ve never done: had my head cut off by unscrupulous gangsters attempting to put the squeeze on a movie producer. The film doesn’t give us a lot of time with Khartoum the horse, so it is difficult to broadly assess the intelligence of this animal, but I would say that allowing yourself to be beheaded in service of sending an ominous message is an extremely foolish thing to do. I simply would not do it, as I am smarter than Khartoum.
5. The Unconscious Horses in Close Encounters, Close Encounters of the Third Kind
Similarly to Khartoum, we know almost nothing about the trio of unconscious horses spotted by Roy Neary and Jillian Guiler on their to the Devil’s Tower national monument, but their willingness to allow themselves to be put to sleep by some sort of military gas to further the lie that there was a dangerous chemical spill in area seems like the sort of decision that someone not particularly bright would make. If someone were to attempt to knock me out with sleep gas, I would simply run away. It’s that easy.
4. Artax, The NeverEnding Story
Pictured: A horse that clearly missed the first day of swamp school.
Artax was certainly lucky that Bastian was able to harness the power of the Auryn to return Fantasia to its previous state and thus return him to life, because most of us would not get a second chance after being consumed by the Swamps of Sadness. I’m smarter than most horses and, even then, I would say most horses have the good sense not to get stuck in a swamp and die in it, so it’s staggering to imagine just how much smarter I am than this horse. (It’s definitely a lot, though.)
3. Joey, War Horse
War Horse might be a beautiful story about love, devotion, perseverance, tragedy, and loss, but it’s also a cautionary tale about how not to live your life. Sure, the first time you experience tragedy, you can curse your misfortune. The second time, you can curse it even harder. But the third time? Maybe you’re just not very good at making life decisions. Joey, maybe a little bit of introspection could have saved you from the punishing hellscape that was your life.
2. Shetan, The Black Stallion
Thanks to a convenient maritime accident, the handsome, incredible Arabic racehorse and titular black stallion of the film, Shetan, is given his freedom after washing up on a beach – a freedom he swiftly squanders after being bribed with seaweed by a similarly storm-wracked child. It’s difficult to argue that the horse would have lived particularly long alone on a desert island, but surely it’s better to die free than it is to spend your life as a slave to the horse racing industry. This servile animal chose chains instead of freedom, something surely not indicative of a greater intelligence.
1. Seabiscuit, Seabiscuit
Pictured: “I wonder what personal growth I can suck out of this horse?”
I think we can all agree that being alive is quite difficult. As individuals, our own journeys through life are hard enough to comprehend and process, making the emotional toll of taking aboard other people’s problems something that can be very difficult to bear. Seabiscuit the horse used his emotional labour to rehabilitate not one, but three broken men. And what did he get in return? He was pushed to his very limits – while injured – as the men that he emotionally rehabilitated enjoyed the riches and fame that came along with his success. Despite the courage with which the horse Seabiscuit comported himself, I must simply conclude that I am vastly more intelligent than this beast, as I would never allow myself to be exploited in this fashion.
