Oscar-winning American/Canadian actor Brendan Fraser spoke last weekend on the red carpet of the love he has for his horse, Pecas, who passed away.
While attending the Red Sea Film Festival in Saudi Arabia, Fraser told the press that his horse Pecas, which is Spanish for freckles, had a major impact on his life. The Whale star said, “I had a horse for a while there. He’s not with us anymore, I’m sad to say. He’s in horsey heaven. He saved… not my life, but he certainly saved an emotional part of me.”
Fraser first met Pecas, a flea-bitten grey gelding that looked as though he may have had draft horse in him, while filming the 2015 miniseries Texas Rising in Mexico. In a 2018 GQ article he tells how he noticed Pecas in the holding pens being picked on by other horses on set. “They beat up on this horse. I mean, I swear, I saw him get kicked so many times, bit, by other horses all the time. And I never saw him fight back,” he told GQ. “Without pretending that the animal is a human, he looked like he needed help. Like: ‘Get me out of here, man.’”
Fraser went on to tell the magazine that after watching Pecas get bullied by the other horses he thought, “All right, I got a job for you if you want it.” He arranged to transport Pecas to his home outside of New York City. It was a journey that involved shipping the big grey on a trailer from Durango to Juarez in Mexico, with quarantine in El Paso, Texas. From there Pecas traveled to New York on a FedEx cargo plane. “And the veterinarians that ride on those cargo planes, they were like, ‘This horse walked on like he wanted to know what the movie was and what was for dinner.’”
In the Variety story, Fraser elaborated on Pecas’s homecoming. “He walked right into the barn close to my home, where I’d rented a stall for him, and he happily laid down on fresh shavings and thought, ‘yep, okay, I’m done.’”
As for the job that Fraser wanted Pecas to do, it was to be there for his then 15-year-old son Griffin who is on the autism spectrum. It proved to be a good match, Fraser explained to GQ. “There’s something good that happens between the two of them. And even if he doesn’t ride him, just give him a brush. The horse loves it, the repetitive motion that kids on the spectrum have that they love. And it just works… You know, you have to find those tools, strategies. If I ride, too, I just feel better.”
In an Instagram post from fellow horse lover Martha Stewart, Fraser is seen smiling happily while mounted on Pecas. Any horse owner can relate to the loss of a special animal, and we send our condolences to Fraser.
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