In Poor Taste
Regardless of how funny Mongo’s knockout punch scene was considered to be, many viewers saw it as inappropriate. And there’s no surprise there. Animal rights activists were more than outraged with the way the horse was treated, despite the fact that in reality the horse wasn’t injured.
Source: YouTube
Nevertheless, it was argued that the scene was unnecessary and a less violent scene could have been made instead. The good news is that the filmmakers didn’t harm any horses to film that scene. They had the horses trained to fall on command.