DUSTIN HOFFMAN: WHY WOULD I EVER GO ON A HORSE?

1970: Hoffman on a horse

  The abrupt cancellation of the HBO TV series Luck following the deaths of three horses during filming brings to mind something Dustin Hoffman told me recently.

   Hoffman, 74, who starred in the series as gambler and racehorse owner “Ace” Chester Bernstein, was no lover of horses and until he was cast in Luck he had had nothing to do with them for 40 years. The last time was in 1970 when he starred in the Western Little Big Man and had to ride one.

Hoffman today

   “I have the shortest stride in the history of man and the tightest hamstrings,” he said. “I can’t put my legs around a horse, that’s how tight they are. I’m a Los Angeles Jew born in 1937 so why would I ever go on a horse? They had to lift me onto the horse and literally take me off at the end of the day, carry me into a car take me home and put me in a bath of Epsom Salts. It was an excruciating experience.”

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