For "Ben-Hur" (1959), Canutt staged the chariot race with nine teams of four horses. He trained Charlton Heston and Stephen Boyd to do their own charioteering. He and his crew spent five months on the race sequence. In contrast to the 1925 film, not one horse was hurt, and no humans experienced serious injuries; though Joe Canutt, while doubling for Charlton Heston, did cut his chin because he did not follow his father's advice to hook himself to the chariot when Judah Ben-Hur's chariot bounced over the wreck of another chariot.