Happy New Year 2026! The Year of the Horse ... and how Kurosawa didn't get it right

 

Kano Sanraku (his signature is there in the bottom left corner) - a votive plaque (ema)

Horses were, of course, a huge part of the life of the bushi. After all, samurai were, from an early period, mounted warriors. there is so much horse lore associated with them that it is a specialist subject, and one that I am not really qualified to say much about - the few times I went riding were long, long ago.

Horses feature prominently in the early war tales, and these high spirited creatures (stallions often went ungelded) were an important part of the samurai war machine, serving as mounted archery platforms. You can still see the air of yabusame practised at some shrines on festival days - the ones in Kyoto are noticeably more proficient than when I first saw them, so I think they are taking their practice seriously. there are also groups that practice with horses that resemble what the bushi might have actually ridden (archaeological investigations put the average size at about 130cm in height - some 20cms shorter than Arabian horses, although notable horses are recorded with heights of 145cm or thereabouts). 

The Kiso horses that can be seen now give a good idea of what the mounted samurai might have looked like, but there were many local breeds before the Edo period (the Kiso being but one of them) and it is quite possible that the northern horses, known as Nambu and valued as warhorses, were a little larger, on average.

This screenshot shows a yabusame rider on a Kiso horse
(from the discoverthehorse Facebook page)

(There is a good discussion of it here: https://www.planetfigure.com/threads/war-horse-of-the-samurai-age.513779/ and if you are interested in this kind of thing, I recommend you taking a look).

Film buffs amongst you may remember the scene in the Kurosawa movie Kagemusha, where the pride of the Takeda cavalry is wiped out as it charges the massed muskets of the Oda and Tokugawa forces at the Battle of Nagashino. You may be interested to know that it is now accepted that this is not how it happened - most of the muskets were concealed behind a far more complex series of fieldworks, hidden in the wooded slopes of the hills, and the Takeda forces were lured into attacking them. Takeda Katsuyori was also unaware of the real size of the opposing source, and that he was actually outnumbered by about 2 to1, but believing he was facing a lesser force, and with his line of retreat cut off by the fall of his castle, perhaps felt that this (attacking the force in front of him) was the wisest move.

This was discovered long after the film was made, so no blame goes to Kurosawa (and it is an excellent film).

As might be expected, horse motifs often appeared in art. Horses were also closely connected with Shinto shrines, and they were offered (as mounts for the kami) when making a vow or asking for divine favour. Horses being quite expensive, this was the prerogative of the wealthy – votive plaques (emanating from) with a depiction of a horse were also acceptable. Real horses are sometimes still kept at shrines, and ema, some of them quite old, are often to be seen if you poke around.

Wishing you all the best for the coming year - Happy 2026!

A rather nice horse from an unidentified artist of the Kano School