Jousting on the Edge of the World

When the president of Chivalry Sports asked me to interview Hunter Brown I had only a vague idea about him. Loving the medieval period as I do, it was enough to whet my appetite just knowing he taught people how to joust. What I didn't know was that Hunter, a stunt man, producer, and member of the Screen Actor's Guild had a tale to tell as big as China and as exciting as the joust itself. This is the story of how Hunter Brown brought medieval jousting to life in China by creating Asia's top rated Action-Equestrian Show at Frobeland, a theme park in Shanghai.

Adventure, risk, and speed. If you add challenge you've got the forces that drive Hunter Brown. It was exciting just sitting across from him listening to his adventures as he described the conditions in China and the extraordinary obstacles he overcame. We laughed a lot and probably drove the waitress crazy with how long we kept her table while he told me all about his action-packed career, how he's portrayed a medieval knight jousting to uphold his lady's honor and an old west outlaw attempting a daring bank hold up. His brown eyes grow wide and he leans forward enthusiastically explaining the stunts involved in playing a hunted drug lord racing his speed boat through treacherous waterways trying to evade the police. The chase ends in a water explosion. "Boom!" He throws his arms up and smiles a toothy smile.

It sounds more like the daydreams of a little boy than an actual career and perhaps that's just when the seeds were planted. Hunter Brown began riding horses at the age of seven. His family sent him to California for his schooling but he spent his summers at home in Kentucky. He got a job at a race horse prep farm mucking out stalls, then worked his way up to groom and feeder. Later he was promoted to exercise boy. In addition to riding fast horses, Hunter liked to ride dirt bikes, skateboard, and surf. At age seventeen he set a new world record when he was clocked at 52-1/2 mph on his skateboard. A year later he went to stunt man school. Looking back, 36 year old Hunter says, "All the skate boarding, dirt bike riding, surfing, and working with horses helped mold me for stunt work. I like being on the edge, but I like to be safe about it. I've been doing stunts now for 18 years."

Jousting was an irresistible lure for Hunter, it combined all his favorites--adventure, risk, speed, and challenge. But somehow it was more than just that. Jousting was a natural fit for him, like he'd done it before. "It's a lot of fun ... I like it. The harder it gets, the tougher it is... sometimes the more I like it." He laughs and takes off his baseball cap, turns it over in his hand and looks at it. "See, instead of playing football," he replaces the hat, "I'm out there jousting."

At the time Hunter was training horses at Medieval Times, a tournament jousting attraction in Southern California, he had no idea how jousting would shape his future. It was there he met Brad Billington, Vice President of Sales and Marketing for Mirage Entertainment, a company committed to a wide range of entertainment products including film and program production, distribution, marketing, live shows, and public attractions. "Brad was talking to Medieval Times about a medieval show at Frobeland, a theme park being built in Shanghai. Mirage had the plans but nothing was started yet. I was doing Renaissance Fairs in California at the time and invited Brad out to watch me joust. He liked what he saw and I kept in touch with him. One day he called me back and says, 'Hey remember that medieval show? Are you ready to go over there and do it?' And I said, 'Yeah ... OK. Let's go!'"

When Hunter arrived in Shanghai the park had thirty horses. Unfortunately, the buyers had not known what to look for in a jousting horse -- they were too small and old to be used. "I knew what to look for -- strong bones, good confirmation, and size. I wanted the horses to be 3 and 4 year olds." Hunter knew about Euro-Disney's earlier misfortune. "They shipped 90 horses and saddles to France for their Wild Buffalo Bill Show at an expense of over one million dollars. Six months later half of their stock had broke down from overuse. A year into the show they had 15 out of 90 original horses still working. That's why I specifically insisted on 60 horses for our show. Over a year later at Frobeland 50 of the original 60 are still in the show. There are 25 horses in each show, we have two teams that alternate days. That leaves us 10 spares so if there are injuries the horses can recover. That saved those horses."

But finding the right horses was the problem. China has a military horse farm dating back hundreds of years. At one time there were up to 25,000 horses kept there for military use. Today the numbers are closer to 5000. After traveling four hours by plane from Shanghai, then two days by train, Hunter, his translator, and a purchasing agent from Mirage were picked up by military personnel for another day's journey by jeep to the horse farm. "They treated us like kings at first," Hunter recalls. "Fine food, lots to drink. I was the first American to ever go there." They spent a couple days journeying out in the jeep, looking at different herds in the mountains. The horses were all too small. "You see in China they don't send any pictures, if they had it would have saved us a lot of time." The purchasing agent inadvertently let it slip to one of the colonel's aides that Hunter thought the horses were too small. Soon they found themselves shoved onto a bus packed shoulder to shoulder for a six hour ride to town to wait for another bus scheduled a day later. When the bus finally arrived so did orders from the military horse farm. They were not to let any foreigners board the bus. Hunter ended up hiring a driver to return him.

"I had a deadline for this show. I had five months left and I didn't even have any horses yet. I knew it would take at least three months to train the horses. I had twenty Mongolian men lined up to help me and the Russian Cossack Trick Riding Team coming down, 15 of the best trick riders in the world and I knew I needed not only to get the horses broke, but in shape. To do the tricks you have to have the speed. Their horses would be required to gallop or run any time they were working." Back at headquarters in Shanghai more research was done. Hunter wanted at least four different resources before setting out again.

This time after flying 3600 miles, traveling two days by train, then a 36-hour bus ride and a stretch by jeep into the far away northwestern corner of China, he was disappointed again. "Their horses were terrible!" Hunter asked where the other resources were. The guide motioned to the looming mountains and estimated three days travel time due to bad weather. "At this point I had already been on the road for 10 days without a shower. That's not because there weren't any showers, but because there wasn't any hot water. The water was so cold I couldn't get in. I had to take a sponge bath instead." The team traveled on dirt roads through the mountains by truck, weathering rain, sleet, and snow. "The roads were very primitive and there were no guard rails. You could look down and see buses and cars at the bottom."

The weather worsened but the driver decided to push on. They reached a village at about 1 am. It was snowing very hard when they hit ice on the road. "In these small mountain towns the villagers throw water out on the road to ice it. Then to make money, they offer to push you off the icy area and help you up the hill. If you don't pay it, you've got trouble and that's exactly what we had." The driver told the villagers that he had four wheel drive and didn't need any help. Suddenly, fifteen men armed with heavy shovels surrounded the truck. They pushed the truck back into a cul-de-sac and kept it there for an hour and a half while they beat on the truck with the shovels. Hunter's crew became very concerned when the villagers found out there was a foreigner inside. At 5'11" tall with light brown hair and fair coloring Hunter's identity could hardly be overlooked. This made the locals all the more angry. "They could have killed me up there. I would have never been found," Hunter laughs, a little nervously at the memory. "I wasn't scared, but I was pretty worried. Anyway, there was a lot of arguing going on and then they pulled us out. More arguing then they pushed us back in again and we sat for about two hours." At around 4 am a friendly group of locals arrived and freed the truck. They took the men to a winery to let them sleep out the storm.

After several more tries, Hunter finally found what he was looking for. A lead from the Chinese Department of Agriculture sent Hunter and his team in search of a herd of wild horses thought to be in the mountains of the northwestern corner of China where Kazakhstan and Mongolia come together. Here they were beyond road access and had to make a four hour ride on horseback into an area heavily inhabited by wolf and bear. "I could see wolf and bear hides stretched on frames outside many of the dwellings we passed so I knew what was out there. Even more unnerving was the thought of meeting up with any people after what we'd just experienced in the village. Firearms aren't allowed in China, but I was able to buy a couple knives and carried them with me for protection." As it turned out the trip was well worth the effort but not without peril. A group of native guides found a herd of about 200 good horses-- the right size and young.

"On the return we got caught by surprise by a quick-moving storm. It was a beautiful, sunny day when we started out so I didn't have rain gear. My primary concern had been protection against the wolves, bears, and any people we might meet. Anyway, I got wet. When the rain changed to sleet and the temperature dropped near zero I thought I was going to freeze to death." Hunter shakes his head. "I really didn't think I was going to make it. One of the riders that took me up there kept giving me rice wine. It kept me warm. I kept drinking it."

The natives herded the horses out of the mountains. Hunter picked out forty and had them loaded on a flat-bed truck with side rails. These horses were wild! It was a very difficult situation. Hunter picked out another twenty horses from farmers in the Tian Shan Province and together the horses were shipped two days by truck and three weeks by train. The horses arrived in Shanghai tired and dehydrated, each averaging 100 to 200 pounds underweight. Several had serious worm problems.

For the first three weeks the horses recovered from their journey and adapted to the climate changes. North China is very dry and cold. Shanghai in the southeast has one hundred percent humidity and temperatures reaching one hundred degrees. Providing a good diet for the horses was another challenge. "The Chinese fed a diet of ground rice, bean cake, and rice hay. That's a bad diet. I told them I wanted some oats and bran." Hunter was told China doesn't have oats. After a long search he found a carton of Quaker Oats in a store with a Chinese address on it. That company became the oat supplier. Hunter got the horses' weights up by feeding them lots of corn. He added a little bran and oats. This was to be a high-paced action show, five shows a day, seven days a week. "Those horses had to work! I used race horse cardiovascular and endurance techniques to get them in shape. I knew if I could break these horses, get them strong and healthy and on a good diet, that I could train them."

Two months later all the horses were broke and in good shape. "At first it was dangerous just to get near the horses. They could tell the difference in how I, a white man, smelled from the Mongolian men they were used to feeding them. Those horses were mean! I got hurt several times. Lots of us did." When training began, Hunter brought in an assistant horse trainer, Jay C. Coe of Tucson, Arizona. Coe, a former rodeo bare-back rider and Marlboro Man, helped train the horses and the men. "I knew I couldn't bring just anyone over," says Hunter. Jay C. is a hard, tough man. He broke his leg over there and still kept working. I couldn't have done it without him." The nineteen best horses were given to the Russian Cossack Trick Riding Team. The rest of the horses and men were trained for ground-to-horse combat, horse-to-horse combat, and quintain. Specialties included 20 bowing horses, 15 falling horses, and 10 rearing horses.

"The Mongolian riders are good riders but over the years they've developed some terrible habits. Their herding background and temperament tells them to plow-rein a horse and not use any leg cues. I had to retrain them and change all their habits. They're very dangerous, especially when you put a lance in their hand or a sword." Hunter grins and raises his eyebrows. "It puts you in mind of Ghengis Khan. They react before they think." The training schedule was rigorous. The heat was so bad that the trainers got up at 4 am to work the horses in the morning. After the 11 am lunch Hunter worked with the men. Training the men took a lot of man- hours of drilling. First they worked on ring tilts for three weeks straight, then moved on to the quintain. "I kept them at it every day. The men got real bored with it after awhile, but it helped with their accuracy. I made them use real heavy lances so they could get their shoulders in shape. Then, when I gave them the show lances, which were much lighter--they were pinewood with break-away scored tips--they could last for all five shows of the day. I knew if I could get the horses trained everything else would fall in place: accuracy, bowing cues, lancework, leg cues, saddle falls, and swordwork."

An American team of six jousters was hired to play the lead parts at the opening of the show. "It really helped the Mongolians. They were able to watch the Americans, mimic them and later move into those parts." Today the show is performed entirely by Asians. "When the Mongolian men first started, they all had short hair, dressed plainly and were kind of quiet. After the Americans arrived, the Mongolians grew their hair, got more outgoing and started wearing sun glasses; they picked up the style."

The show opened with only four and one half months of training behind the horses and the men. Hunter not only trained the men, the horses, and the backstage and technical crews; he produced the entire show. "As producer I was responsible for the whole thing, everything that happens. It encompasses every aspect of the show from the smallest detail to the final product. I set it up so that now it runs itself."

Looking back at the entire project Hunter said, "I'm a jouster and a swordsman as well as a horse trainer and a trick trainer on top of that. It all fit together. My background was everything I needed. With that show, basically... if the horses didn't behave properly you didn't have a show." True to form, like the knights of old, Hunter Brown meets his challenges with his whole heart, giving it his all, rising from the field to look eagerly ahead for the next contest.

What's next? Adventure on the high seas! Hunter is currently putting together an action-packed pirate show in Taiwan's Folk Village Theme Park. The event will center around a ship-to-ship battle, with one main ship and several smaller ships. There will be pyrotechnicis, water explosions, and lots of stunts, climaxing in the collapse of the main mast with a 50 foot fall for the stunt man. With a twinkle in his eye and big grin, Hunter says, "I'm the star of this show. I do the high fall into the sea." And then what? "I'm not sure. I'd like to produce more things. I really enjoy working with Mirage--there's a lot of variety in the contracts they've given me while I'm free for freelance work, too. I like doing the theme park shows and I wouldn't mind training some professional jousting horses either."

Adventure. Risk. Speed. Count Hunter Brown in. As for the challenge, when Hunter Brown picked up the guantlet on this project, he not only produced the number one Action-Equestrian Show in China, but, thanks to the success of the Medieval Jousting Show, Frobeland is rated number 18 on the list of best theme parks in the world by Theme Park Services.

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This page was last updated Tuesday, 27-May-2003 13:20:34 EDT