During the show, knights jump between moving horses and fall to the ground. While it’s all part of the show, Bowman said the horses are abused through overtraining.
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Performers have also sustained severe injuries such as torn rotator cuffs, back problems, broken bones, and concussions. The performances strain their bodies to the breaking point. Bowman fractured his spine while performing. Not only do these injuries require workers to take time off, but repeated injuries may result in chronic medical issues.
Abusive company forcing workers to do something that otherwise takes years upon years of training to pull off properly? What could possibly go wrong?
Also, while a knight’s armor will protect you from most things that would otherwise kill an unarmored person, doing abnormal things with it (such as jumping between moving horses, which to my knowledge would also be harmful to a period-accurate horse as medieval horses were actually quite small compared to modern ones) will very likely lead to injury no matter how well your armor is made. In fact, joint dislocation was a common technique in armored combat.
On top of that, abusing a big, fast, heavy, and usually skittish animal like a horse is always a recipe for disaster.
Welcome to capitalism AND feudalism.
My first thought was “What the hell, did they reactivated Knights of Labor?”
I wish.