Altivo from The Road to El Dorado (2000) had some scene-stealing reactions. © DreamWorks SKG.

DreamWorks' The Road to El Dorado (2000) is one of the best character animated films yet made. While originally billed as a buddy movie, Altivo the horse can be considered a necessary third wheel for the duo of Tulio and Miguel. Stylized and intelligent, Altivo forwards along the story, for example, in chasing an apple over the railing of the Spanish voyage ship; in kicking the wall during the ball game, in El Dorado, to secure the winning goal for Miguel and Tulio; and in leaping to free the sail and thus the departing ship from harm's way, as a collapsing pillar closed the secret city of gold to the marching conquistadors. While most animated horses avoid the dreaded "Mr. Ed" syndrome, Altivo does take up human language on one occasion, joining his companions in awed, marveling chorus, when he says, "El Dorado..."

While Shrek's Donkey falls outside the immediate purview of this article, he is still notable for having such a prominent, heroic role in the film — and for talking! It is interesting to note that by 2001, "the horse sidekick" is such a well-known element of animated features that when Shrek decided to break all the usual conventions, it punned the "mighty steed," turning the norm into a helpful but wisecracking, slightly neurotic, pushy donkey.

Lastly, then, our survey concludes with DreamWorks' newly released Spirit: Stallion of the Cimarron. The film begins with the birth of a foal, Spirit — and perhaps this is fitting, in that the film also represents the birth of a new kind of animated horse. Unlike other films to date, horses are not just integral characters to the story, they are central to it. Through the first-person narrative perspective of Spirit, we glimpse inside the mind and motivations of the horse protagonist, explicitly. While voiceover helps to contextualize the story, careful attention and conscious manipulation of the details of the horses' body and behavior work to communicate thoughts and emotion. The animated horses within Spirit, including Rain, achieve a level of heroism and sophistication unmatched in earlier films; as well as successfully bringing to life the traditionally drawn and computer generated forms of the animal.

Without a spoken word, Spirit and Rain from Spirit: Stallion of the Cimarron (2002), kept audiences captivated. © DreamWorks SKG.

Wins By A Nose
Back in the day, when characters were more a bouncing bricolage of happy circles and hoses, animators didn't have to worry so much about all of the underlying business of muscle and bone. Nowadays, we see the gamut of characters — everything from the plush design of Toy Story 2's Bullseye to the physiological accuracy of DreamWorks' Spirit.

Evolution, please remember, is not the plodding, purposeful march of creation, but rather a ramifying result of happenstance and circumstance. Different branches of an evolutionary tree can and do coexist as contemporaries, much like humans are contemporaries of chimpanzees, and one did not actually evolve from the other (as is sometimes the misconception).

As with theoretical biology, so too with animation history. The categories of animated horses do not imply or predict one another. Rather, they are all extant today, depending on the needs and circumstances of the story.

Greg Singer is the eohippus of the hippocampus, and recognizes that horses are better than wishes. He wishes he had a horse.