Mario Luraschi

Portrait

As a horse trainer, stuntman and stuntrider, riding master, driver, trick rider, but also saddle-maker, stable manager, etc, Mario Luraschi is a real equestrian master.
He accumulates observations, knowledge and experience and goes to the utmost of his reflection concerning the horses.
His eagerness to learn and his persistence made him to be nominated ‘Chevalier des Arts et des Lettres’ (Knight in the Arts and Literature) and receive, in 2016, the medal of honour of Knight in the French Order of the Légion d’Honneur, out of the hands of Robert Hossein.

High School & Classical Dressage

As a pupil of the Spanish horse trainer Paco Yanez, Mario Luraschi was schooled in the equestrian tradition of working with Spanish bulls. He learned also very much in the circus, especially thanks to working with Alexis Gruss senior (father of Lucien) in the world famous Circus Jean Richard Pinder.
He schooled more than 300 horses into high school and classical work.
An absolute record!

Equestrian Vaulting And Trick Riding

He teaches one and the same horse to jump into the flames, to pull a carriage in a breathtaking gallop, to fall, to rear or … to play dead for a movie shoot.

Mario Luraschi started his career in the western theme park ‘La vallée des peaux rouges’ in 1965, in the Oise region near Paris.
As sspecialists in the Cossack vaulting, he and his team of stuntmen are the masters of the action scenes and equestrian tournaments.

Stuntwork

He coordinates the most incredible stunts to the last detail and in absolute safety for his horses. For the movie ‘The riders of the storm’, he jumps with a breathtaking gallop into a small and crowded boat. In the circus of Amiens, he makes his horse disappear into a box. In 2001, he wins the world stunt award for a stunt in ‘A Knight’s Tale’, an American film of Brian Helgeland. He accomplished nearly 800 ‘rear-and-fall-overs’, a very dangerous equestrian stunt, often seen in battle scenes.

Driving & Harnessing

He equips all sorts of carriages, wagons and chariots with several horses and launches them at full speed, simulates accidents or drives them through the fire. Driving is one of the great specialities of Mario Luraschi and he created an incredible demonstration for an audience of 298.000 spectators in 2006 in the Stade de France, Paris, for the staging of ‘Ben Hur’, a show directed by Robert Hossein.

Being a detail fanatic, he can harness a Russian troika or an ancient Spanish equipage. “Where ever I go in the world, I watch, I ask for explanations and I learn.” A thirst for knowledge leads him to visit museums, to read historical works of the old masters, to collect objects and to fabricate himself the harnesses and saddles that he needs. He owns an extraordinary collection of saddles, harnesses, bridles, bits and historical equestrian items.

Liberty Work

As real actors, his horses can play everything: attacking, sitting, laying down, playing asleep or arrive at a full gallop as in the 45 episodes of ‘The Black Stallion’.
For a commercial for OPI (‘Instinct of colour’), one of his stallions challenges four dancers, imitating the style of each of them. In ‘The riders of the storm’ of Gerard Vergez, a horse attacks his trainer and in ‘Into the West’ a horse appears in a magnificent way on the beach.

Liberty Work