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Originally Posted by trebor8273 
Ben Hur accidently kills a Roman official and is arrested by a Roman you thought of as a friend and is sent too become a galley slave. We follow Ben Hur on a epic journey from galley slave , too adopted son a Roman senator and his quest for revenge and too find his mother and sister along the way his path crosses with Jesus right up to the crucifixion. Truly epic in scope and direction and something we would not seen made today. The chariot race is fantastic spectacle, but is quite a uncomfortable watch with one of the stuntmen being killed which i think is kept in the film , also supposedly nearly 100 horses were killed. The film won a total of 11 oscars which wasn't equaled until Titanic .
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A myth. This never happened. Same with the horses. None were killed.
What happened was a stuntman was thrown into the air and it should have been fatal but he escaped with a minor facial injury and it was used as part of the race as he scrambled back into the chariot. It is in the film though in long shot and it looks terrific.
They used something like 200 horses during the shoot so they could interchange them regularly so they weren't in the searing heat for long periods.