Local Percheron makes movie debut

Dakota, a 16- plus hand black Percheron, stands in an arena at Achorn Acres farm on the Westborough/ Upton town line with owner and Westborough native Craig McCoskery. The horse made his acting debut during the filming of the Bruce Willis movie, "The Surrogates." The film has been shooting scenes in various towns in the region and PHOTO/KATE DALY is due out in 2009. Region - Dakota is used to the limelight. He's been a carriage horse in Boston, and he often is in the traces of a white vis-à-vis carriage in weddings. Recently, he was gussied up for a dressage competition in Grafton.

But his big break may be coming in a Bruce Willis movie.

"They were looking for a horse that would drive a carriage that was filled with vegetables as if it was going to the market and coming back from the market," said Craig McCoskery, Dakota's owner. "We probably did 25 takes."

McCoskery, a Westborough native, drove the vegetable-laden wagon in the scene that was filmed in Taunton June 11.

And the big question: Did they meet the action hero?

"Bruce Willis was about five feet from my horse," Mc- Coskery said. "I had three words with him. I said, 'Excuse me sir,' and he moved."

The inside view of making a movie was perhaps a little less exciting, as they had to wait hours to begin their 25 takes. Dakota was undisturbed, McCoskery said.

"He was awesome," he said. "We were supposed to start shooting at nine o'clock and they didn't get to shoot our scene until 3:30 or four o'clock that day.

"So Dakota just hung out with the prop people, ate some treats and hung around all day. He's very laid back about everything. He didn't mind the cameras …. There was one close call when one of the cameras came close to him, but he just looked at it."

Movie people are accustomed to illusion, so a horse wasn't much of a surprise. That Dakota, 11, was a living animal was more of a surprise.

"It was kind of funny," McCoskery said. "People walked by him a couple times and they looked, and [said], 'Oh, he's real.' It was funny to see the look on their faces."

Dakota took the whole process in stride, McCoskery said.

"It was a warm day, so he didn't want to exert too much energy," he said. "The prop people had great produce … The biggest carrots I've ever seen, so I asked the prop people if he could borrow them, so he ate a little of the set."

Percherons were originally bred as work horses, and Dakota is used to pulling carriages, so pulling the vegetable wagon built especially for the film was no problem, McCoskery said.

"They built [the wagon]," he said. "It's like the body of a truck that was made into a trailer. Then they cut the hitch off the trailer and added an extra axle and then the shafts so the horse could pull."

McCoskery said he could reveal very little about the film, except that the film is set in the future and he and his horse represent a community that has turned away from technology and established farms in the middle of a city.

According to the film website www.imdb.com, the movie is based on a graphic novel written by Robert Venditti and illustrated by Brett Weldele.

McCoskery said he had once approached an agency about animal acting, but was turned away. Then he got the call for "The Surrogates." The casting agents may have found Dakota through the website for the business he and his wife, Julie, run, called Coachman's Legacy. They provide coach rides in a six-person, open, vis-à-vis carriage.

Dakota came to Achorn Acres from life as a carriage horse in Boston, McCoskery said, where he was less than a success.

"He didn't really get along with them because he didn't like walking over cobblestones. He doesn't really like walking through puddles," he said. "He'd see something he didn't want to walk over and he'd just stop and look at it."

McCoskery had worked with Dakota in Boston and liked the horse, despite his foibles.

"He came up for sale and I couldn't really pass that up," he said.

McCoskery also teaches riding lessons at Achorn Acres. He's been working with horses since childhood, and his "day" job is also teaching: mathematics at Westborough High School, where he graduated eight years ago.

On a recent Sunday, Dakota was preparing for a dressage competition run by the Blackstone Valley Dressage and Combined Training Association, held at George Hill Farm in Grafton. Martha Dacier rode him in the introductory walk/trot competition.