The documentary Channel Presents World Premiere of Clydesdale: Saving the Greatest Horse, 8 November at 9pm
The documentary Channel presents the World Premiere of Clydesdale: Saving the Greatest Horse at 9pm on 8 November.
The Clydesdale horse, famed for its white feathered feet and for hauling Budweiser beer – is in danger of dying out. These giant and iconic horses are on the verge of extinction in the very place where they were bred – Scotland.
The documentary Channel presents the World Premiere of Clydesdale: Saving the Greatest Horse on November 8 at 9 pm. This feature length documentary is the dramatic and emotional story of one woman and her quest to help save this extraordinary breed.
The Clydesdale horse was once so valuable the Scots sold them around the world. The most sought after were the pure blacks. In Clydesdale: Saving the Greatest Horse, Glaswegian Janice Kirkpatrick goes on a mission to alter the destiny of this horse by tracing their bloodlines to the Canadian Prairies, finding the lost blacks and bringing them home.
Kirkpatrick is a celebrated Scottish designer, activist and graduate of the famed Glasgow School of Art. Yet she also describes herself as a “big kid.” Kirkpatrick loves motorcycles. “The power is remarkable,” she says with a laugh. But her first love has always been horsepower of another sort.
“When I was seven I started proper riding lessons [and] I became hooked. When I went to Glasgow School of Art I was 18 and the awful thing was I had to sell my horse because no else in the family rode. It scarred me very deeply.”
After decades of living in Glasgow, she and her husband Ross swapped their lives in the city for a farm on the Scottish coast so they could raise Clydesdales.
But when Kirkpatrick went looking for a black Clydesdale to buy she couldn’t find one anywhere in the U.K. When she asked why, she discovered the horse that powered the agricultural and industrial revolutions was on the verge of what many call “the vortex of extinction.”
Horrified, Kirkpatrick put in place an audacious plan, a plan to try and change the future of this iconic breed.
“The Clydesdale is a treasure trove of positive traits and characteristics that I absolutely am passionate that we should not lose,” declares Kirkpatrick. “It’s now or never to save this breed.”
Clydesdale: Saving the Greatest Horse is a Canada/U.K. co-production between Glasgow’s Stream Scotland and Toronto’s Infield Fly Productions. It began when Kirkpatrick mentioned the state of the Clydesdale horse to Fiona White, founder of Stream Scotland.
It was just such an amazing story,” says White. “We just had to tell it.”
White quickly pitched the documentary to BBC Scotland who agreed to back it and Stream Scotland began filming. Infield Fly Productions got involved when it became clear that Kirkpatrick’s quest had the makings of a feature length documentary, and the key to reviving the Scottish herd lay in Canada.
“Like Fiona we fell in love with the story as soon as we heard about it,” says Infield Fly’s creative director, Dugald Maudsley. “We were also intrigued by the fact that there was a family in the heart of the Canadian Prairies that had protected the ancient Clydesdale bloodlines for five generations and their horses might be critical to Janice’s quest.”
The documentary Channel came on board and for the next two years crews in Canada and Scotland followed Kirkpatrick’s every move. The result is a lushly filmed documentary that captures the beauty of the Canadian Prairies, the Clyde Valley near Glasgow and the Clydesdale horse.
“It’s a very gorgeous looking film,” says Maudsley. “It also gives viewers a special opportunity to meet and get to know an extraordinary horse. For us, as filmmakers, it was amazing to get up close to these gentle giants, see their personalities and discover how much their story is part of our own and how much they deserve to be protected and preserved.”