Last month, Talent Management told you all about the new Spielberg feature film War Horse, and a funny story about how the film’s star Jeremy Irvine’s past involved playing a tree! The endearing story made pretty much everyone here at the agency head out to watch Jeremy in action. And, as well as Jeremy’s impressive performance, we had to agree with Richard Corliss of Time when he said War Horse will leave only the stoniest hearts untouched.

So, having been touched by the emotional and heartfelt tale, we wanted to find out more. Luckily for us, we’ve just found out that Channel 4 has commissioned a documentary on real British war horses to coincide with the release of Spielberg’s film.

War Horse: The True Story (WT) is the extraordinary and deeply moving true story of the million British horses who served in WWI.

Directed and produced by George Pagliero, the Testimony Films’ documentary is told using rare archive testimony from WWI veterans who worked with horses, and promises to be even more epic than the film.

Get the tissues ready though – tragically a quarter of a million of the horse at war died from shrapnel wounds and disease, and when the war came to an end, 85,000 of the oldest were sold for horse meat, and half a million were sold to French farmers to help rebuild the countryside, with only 60,000 making it back to Britain.

Channel 4 Specialist Factual Commissioning Editor Julia Harrington says: “I love a reactive piece – and this story has just such great social history behind it. Testimony’s film is a tear jerker but told with the real facts and incredible stills and archive. Look out for the horses having their heads bandaged behind the lines!”

If you loved the feature film, then this is definitely worth a watch.