Harmony Acres Horse Featured in Japanese TV Special on Amazing Animals

 
Parade and trick horse Harmony Tarifa impresses foreign visitors

	 
The Japanese TV Film Production Company Global Photo Associates flew five
members from Tokyo and two from California to film Harmony Tarifa of Salem,
Mi. doing tricks for an upcoming special two hour television special to be
aired in Tokyo, Japan on March 31 from 7 to 9 PM. The program, entitled
Pets and Animals "Pochi-Tama"---- Amazing Animals around the World will be
featuring a cat, dog, and Tarifa an Arabian horse from Harmony Acres  on TV
Tokyo. The purpose of the show is to introduce amazing animals around the
world, as well as animal and pet care programs. The shows contain
interviews with professionals, pets and their owners, and studio discussion
by celebrities and professionals.

Nancy Harm, breeder, owner, and trainer of Tarifa was contacted by phone
after the coordinator of the program, Mika Yamamoto and the company  saw
the farm web site: harmonyacresparadehorses.com and were amazed with the
beauty and brilliant performances of the Arabian gelding Harmony Tarifa. 
After viewing their website, plans were quickly made for the production
crew to fly to Detroit to film the horse doing tricks and showing him
relaxing, eating, being groomed and being ridden.

Tarifa was at his very best behavior during the 4 hour process. He
demonstrated the easiest and first learned trick of fetching a cone and
handing it to Nancy. He followed that with one of the most difficult trick
combinations of picking up an orange tether "basket ball", spinning it
around in a circle, dunking it into a child's basketball hoop, and then
vigorously shaking a green pom pom.. as his own cheerleader! Tarifa
followed that by placing a looped lariat over a full size plastic calf
head, answering the telephone, and playing a Japanese Casio key board to
the extreme delight of the film crew.  Tarifa then pushed a doll carriage
with a large stuffed pony after placing a rattle, a Zebra beanie baby and a
baby bottle into the carriage. Tarifa also demonstrated his training in
progress of color discrimination for red, yellow and blue. Tarifa gave
several demonstrations of his enthusiastic and determined soccer ability by
moving a soccer ball with his nose and all four feet on different
approaches of the ball.  Tarifa finished the trick presentations by
painting a colorful art work with green, red, and yellow paints which was
given to the reporter, Ms. Yuko Mizuno.

The crew which included a director, director assistant, camera man,
audition technician, reporter, reporter manager, and coordinator seemed a
bit quiet and careful around horses at the start or their visit, but soon
warmed up and got up closer to Tarifa. They filmed with two cameras and an
over head sound mike.  Ms. Yuko Mizuno, the television reporter held,
petted and gave treats to Tarifa. Before long, Yuko was asking about
getting the horse to do tricks for her also. After a brief lesson on trick
training she also had Tarifa retrieving a cone, doing basket ball, roping
the calf, shaking the pom pom, answering the phone and painting. The
delight and amazement on her face and that of the rest of the crew probably
added to Tarifa's efforts to do especially well for such a very long
session. 

When asked if she would like to ride Tarifa, Yuko was delighted and that
unplanned episode was worked into the program. The delight and pleasure
shown by the entire crew made the day fun for all involved. Even Tarifa
seemed to sense this was a special event as he gazed at the new visitors
talking in an unfamiliar language with his name frequently mentioned in the
midst of it all!  Film Director, Tatsuya Serizawa wrapped up the day by
shooting some special background scenes in Detroit and the crews flew home
to Japan and California. In a follow up conversation, all the visitors were
very pleased and they felt they got even more from filming Tarifa than they
had expected.

Harmony Acres Horse Featured on NBC Broadcast
Watch a clip from WDIV's Broadcast