Where did Australian native Hugh Jackman go for a crash course on handling cattle on horseback for his starring role in the just released blockbuster Australia? To Texas, with cutting horse trainer and fellow Aussie, Roger Wagner.

In the movie, Jackman plays a cattleman named Drover, who convinces co-star Nicole Kidman, as a widowed English aristocrat, to join him in a drive from central Australia to the coast near Darwin with 2,000 head of cattle, as the Japanese are preparing to bomb Pearl Harbor and Darwin.

Craig Emerton, a former Australian NCHA cutting champion, was the horse and cattle wrangler for the film and hooked Jackman up with Wagner at Rock Creek Ranch, Weatherford, TX.

I caught up with Wagner in Fort Worth at the NCHA Futurity, where he is currently a first go-round leader on Stray Katz and Asscher Cat, both owned by Rock Creek Ranch.

“We got him started sitting on a horse in the arena while I was working some horses,” said Wagner, who found it necessary to tell Jackman the first day that he had put his spurs on wrong. “He’d watch me work some horses and every now and then, I’d kick one in there for him and he’d try to make it stop and hold it there.

“Then we went next door to GCH Land and Cattle and rode some pastures and moved and sorted some cattle. He learned how to gather cattle back to a mob and move them up and through lanes and things. Then he helped us sort some out and split them a couple of ways.

“Eventually, I put him on a horse to work a cow. He got along pretty decent. A couple of times one would duck around and he’d fall over the front a little bit, but he did a pretty good job and he loved it. He said he wished he didn’t have such a busy schedule or he’d try to do a little more of it.”

While Jackman was in Texas, Wagner gave him a straw hat as a gift. Later, Wagner’s mother-in-law sent a magazine with photos of Jackman on a beach, wearing the straw cowboy hat with a cutter’s crease.

“He was really a down to earth guy and took everything well and worked at it,” said Wagner. “And he sat on a horse pretty good.”