A wild ride: those diving horses and their riders
You may have heard of the famous diving horses (perhaps through the movie “Wild Hearts Can’t Be Broken”), but I never had until a day or two ago. I was watching a TV show about Annie Oakley—what an astounding story—and somehow that led me to read about other attractions of the era and I stumbled into the diving horses (see this and this, for example).
At first I thought it was some sort of joke. But the diving horses were real. The practice was discontinued quite some time ago because of animal rights advocates campaigning against it (despite the fact that trainers say the horses were never mistreated and were not injured either). See for yourself:
Animal rights activists predominate in the YouTube comments, too.
Apparently it was a big Atlantic City attraction in my youth, and I could have seen the diving horses because my family went to Atlantic City a few times. But I never saw them; it’s the sort of thing you’d tend to remember. And of course there’s a Trump angle in the article–oh, isn’t there always?
Horse-diving continued until 1978, when pressure from animal rights groups forced organizers to shutter the show. In 1994, Donald Trump’s organization, which owns Steel Pier now, attempted to bring back the act by featuring diving mules and miniature horses, but public protests once again brought the act to an end.
I don’t know what date that was written, but perhaps before his presidency.
I cannot even begin to understand the mentality of a person who would voluntarily jump onto a horse about to dive off a high platform, and hang on tight. But hey, I don’t even ride horses when they’re on the ground.
While injuries did happen, it was more often the horse’s rider who was at risk than the horse. Former diving horse rider Sarah Detwiler Hart, recalled just how much trust there needed to between rider and horse: “They went when they were ready… I wouldn’t want to be on a horse that was agitated. My life depended on that horse doing that in a calm way, so there was no electrical devices or trap doors or anything like that during my time.”
And here’s an article about the heroine of the movie “Wild Hearts Can’t Be Broken”:
In her book, Sonora refutes that these horses were made to jump against their will. She said they all loved it.
I found that difficult to believe (as did many animal welfare people) until Sonora followed that thought with:
“Some people say they must have forced the horses to do what they did. Sonora told me many times the last thing anyone would want was to be up on a tower with a horse that did not want to be there.”
That kinda makes more sense than them forcing the horses to do this. I mean, really, she has a point… I’ve been places where a horse didn’t want to be and they really let you know. I cannot imagine being with any of my horses on top of that tower… No human would put themselves 60? up on the air on a rickety tower with a horse – if the horse was into it. ‘Nuff said.
And this is from another rider (the riders seem to have mostly been pretty young women):
[Her father] then constructed the tower on which he put his daughter, Lorena. Here is what she had to say:
Lorena said her horses loved to jump, often making it difficult to get them to wait to build suspense before jumping. Much depended on the horse, with some leaping immediately off the platform while some took up to 5 minutes to look around. The horse Klatawah (Indian for “go away” or “go to h*ll”), would often paw with his hoof as many times as he felt before diving, a remnant of a pawing-his-age act he had performed. When the crowd was small, Klatawah would make a “few lazy scrapes” and dive from a “reclining” position, but he would prance and show off when the crowd was large.
“I felt his muscles tense as his big body sprang out and down, then had an entirely new feeling. It was a wild, almost primitive feel, that only comes with complete freedom of contact with the earth. Then I saw the water rushing up at me, and the next moment we were in the tank.”
Annette [the sister of the main character in the movie] explained why she dove for so long – even after her sister was blinded – and why Sonora continued to dive after her accident:
“But, the truth was, riding the horse was the most fun you could have and we just loved it so. We didn’t want to give it up. Once you were on the horse, there really wasn’t much to do but hold on. The horse was in charge.”
The most fun you could have.
I’ll just take their word for it.
I think they still do The Suicide Race in Omak, Wa which is not quite as crazy as this but is still pretty wild and the animal activists don’t like it at all (and I may agree with them).
I learned to ride in my 30’s. Given the rush of either show jumping or cross country, you could count me in on horse diving
Your change up pitches on this blog are incredible, I love it. I have been aware of the horse jumping for years, always thought it was kind of strange but if it did not hurt the horse might be fun to watch. I was not a horse kid growing up but I lived in a small county seat town where some kids had horses at the local fair ground and others raised quarter horses and there were a few rodeo contestants around. I did enjoy watching all that rodeo stuff back when they really got banged up and my wife has a grand nephew who is one of the top high school bull riders here in Texas. Even now my neighbors here at the edge of town have horses which are kind of like great big pretty dogs you can ride but they eat a lot more than dogs and require a lot of care.
They sure are beautiful animals and since they were our main land transportation of people and goods for thousands of years we need to appreciate them and be thankful for people who are will to have them around in spite of the cost. Old saying with rich oil guys, like a lot of others similar, is the best way to make a small fortune in raising horses is to start out with a large one.
All sports have at least some danger – more than walking (which is also not risk-free).
I’m pretty sure the horses liked it, at least most of those that did it often.
Going blind? People play/ do sports because of the thrills. The thrills come because of the risks.
If there is no clear evidence of harm to the horse, nor excessive coercion of making the horse go, the presumption should be the horse owner is NOT mistreating the horse. This kind of fun is not self-evident cruelty, tho it could be cruel if it was harming the horse or if the horse is pushed to do it.
I ride (we have 2 Arabians) and I skydive, but I’ll take a pass on horse diving.
I always wondered how they figured out how deep to make the pool.
Physicsguy — where are you when we need you?
Shouldn’t there actually be some cruelty to animals involved before you can shut something down for cruelty to animals?
Guess not.
The same people probably believe you should incarcerate a President for a crime that was never committed
Aesop. Good point.
.
I’ve never heard of diving horses. Those photos are spectacular, and I wish I could have seen the real thing. Thanks very much for posting, Neo.
It surely makes sense to me that you wouldn’t want to be up there about to do a dive on an unhappy horse.
I love Sonora’s sister’s explanation. ““But, the truth was, riding the horse was the most fun you could have ….” I’m so glad that she and her sister and the other women found joy on their diving horses.
I grew up with horses. They are big, they are strong, they are intensely emotional, and they are not well endowed with impulse control. They are also curious, interested in having fun and capable of trusting a person who’s shown them reason to do so. Horses are fully able to kill human beings who annoy or scare them, and they absolutely would not do most of what people get them to do if they didn’t want to do it. I don’t know HOW the people who trained those horses got them to want to jump off those towers, but somehow they did. If those horses were afraid or reluctant they’d have kicked the tops of those towers apart before they jumped off.
In a couple of those photos, you can see the horses’ faces. Their ears are forward, their eyes are calm and alert, their heads are up — they don’t look the way horses look when they’re angry or frightened. They look like horses who are interested in what they’re doing. When you’re on a horse, you can tell, no question, whether the horse is enjoying what you’re doing or not. Most of the time, they are.
I don’t know HOW the people who trained those horses got them to want to jump off those towers, but somehow they did.
Mrs Whatsit: Indeed. I am amazed.
I’m also surprised the laws of physics aren’t more of a problem considering how massive horses are. Force equals mass times acceleration and all that.
I remember how hard the water felt when I was a kid diving off a 12′ high board. I’m not surprised poor Sonora, the human rider in one of the videos, blinded herself by keeping her eyes open when she hit the water. (How did she keep her eyes open? I thought closing them was a natural reflex.)
Those who commit suicide by jumping off the Golden Gate Bridge die from impact with the water, which is like concrete at that speed. Maybe they live a while longer and manage to drown but it’s the internal injuries that are the cause. Of course the Golden Gate is 750 feet high.
There is a macabre documentary about suicide jumpers from the Golden Gate. There have been a least a couple survivors (a very low percentage) and they interviewed one of them, a young man.
Ignoring wind resistance, a 40 ft. drop gives a vertical speed of about 35 mph, and a 60 ft. drop is about 42 mph. I couldn’t say anything about the depth of the pool, except that given the pictures, I’d want it to be greater than the distance from the outstretched front hooves to the rump.
I had seen the movie some years ago mainly because I wanted to see Gabrielle Anwar when she was younger. She has a nice screen presence.
From the AmusingPlanet pictures it looks like the rider places her head along side of the horse’s neck with her chin down so that the top of head or helmet smacks the water. In this case I think the rider’s shoulder and chest takes most of the impact against the horse’s back and base of the neck.
I had previously assumed that one should keep one’s head directly behind the horse’s neck, but then the rider’s face and neck would be taking the brunt of the impact against the horse’s neck.
In the very last picture it looks like the rider didn’t keep her chin down very well. Looks a bit painful. As a water skier and short board windsurfer from days gone by, I’ve hit the water many times at 30+ mph. It’s fun, though you do learn how to fall correctly. And you have some freedom of movement that a horse rider doesn’t. Oh yeah, the speed is horizontal, not vertical. Big difference.
Trump likes to drown impossibly cute adorable kittens. That’s why I voted for him.
Too many links Neo. (Ha)
From horseandman,
I tend to think the initial splash impact is a factor too.
A 10 foot pool depth. Maybe a Unicode issue with single quotes?
Tommy, interesting thought about an undereducated Unicode.
I wanted to see Gabrielle Anwar when she was younger.
TommyJay: There’s always Ferrara’s odd remake of “Invasion of the Body Snatchers,” where Anwar plays the teen protagonist on a military base being slowly overrun by the pod people. Very different from the other body snatcher movies, but I liked it.
I didn’t become aware of Anwar until I saw her as the winsome Irish explosives expert in “Burn Notice.”
huxley,
Yes, I hadn’t seen Anwar until Burn Notice. She was also in a slightly cheesy Lifetime movie that was a cut above their usual. I’ve only seen the primary two Body Snatchers, but not that one. The original Kevin McCarthy one is so good.
TommyJay: I find the Body Snatchers premise fascinating. Turns out there is a psychiatric disorder, Capgras delusion, in which one imagines one’s family members and friends to have been replaced by impostors.
There’s even a fourth Body Snatchers movie from 2007 with Daniel Craig and Nicole Kidman, though it’s the weakest of the lot. It becomes an action chase thriller with odd political overtones.
As the Pod People take over the world, there’s peace in the Middle East and the Iraq War ends! It’s presented as irony — humanity gets world peace at the cost of human individuality — but there’s a palpable sense of regret in the film that the Pod price is just a little too high.
To all concerned:
I can hardly believe it. Is it really possible that there’s been a discussion of Gabrielle Anwar here and no one has yet mentioned this?
I always wondered how they figured out how deep to make the pool.
Drop a wooden mockup of approximate density using metal cores.
I’m not surprised poor Sonora, the human rider in one of the videos, blinded herself by keeping her eyes open when she hit the water. (How did she keep her eyes open? I thought closing them was a natural reflex.)
She made an agreement before she was born that this event would happen to her, in order to test her love and affinity for life + horse riding. Spirit knows this going into the birth canal, but forget once they come out (assuming you humans don’t camp the spawn and abort 40% of US births like you do now).
The union of man with machine, or in this case, girl with horse, heightens the spiritual senses of mankind that was lost in the last few ages.
The fact that “animal rights” advocates, advocate for the disunion and disunity and conflict between mankind and flora/fauna, is perhaps just another gimick you humans use to put chink in your bank accounts. Check out how much PETA makes from killing pets and donations.
Trum is so weak against the swamp and Deep State, that his backers have to prop him up even when Trum negotiates with and uses compassion/mercy vs the backstabbing traitors in the FBI/CIA, and so on and so forth in Byzantine DC.
Microwaving kittens? Somebody that doesn’t have the guts to put HRC in jail (because he knows he would get JFKed), may just have to settle for a kitten in a microwave then.
Scent of a Woman tango scene:
It took 2 weeks to rehearse with 2 choreographers, and 3 days to shoot. It’s a hugely popular scene.
I noticed that the script lowers the expectations for both dancers before it starts. I’ve always been impressed by ballroom dancers that can pull off those yo-yo twirls of the woman and make it look smooth. It doesn’t in the film. But hey, he’s blind and she doesn’t dance.
While Anwar is not unrecognizable if you’ve only seen her in her more recent roles, it is a very different look. I had actually seen her in Scent of a Woman, The Three Musketeers, and Things to Do in Denver When You are Dead; and didn’t realize it or recognize the face.
She was about 21 years old in Scent of a Woman but could pass for 17. Was she playing a high school student?
I didn’t care much for the film, but I’d only seen it the once in a theater. There are many such films that I like on a second or third viewing on the medium size screen at home.
While Anwar is not unrecognizable if you’ve only seen her in her more recent roles, it is a very different look.
Based on “Burn Notice” I sure didn’t recognize Anwar in “Scent” and “Body Snatchers.” She was blandly attractive then, but she now has a crisp, distinctive elfin look. Wonder if her looks matured or she had work done.
Mrs Whatsit, we are talking 1881. They probably taught those horses to dive the using much the same techniques the U.S. Army used to teach cavalry horses to get used to gunfire.
The troopers would ride their horses around in a wide circle, in the center of which was a soldier with a very small caliber pistol next to a trough of some sort of treat for the horses. Something they liked but didn’t get everyday. As the troopers rode around in the circle at some point the soldier would fire the pistol. The troopers would turn their horses in and let them feed. Then they would head out and form a slightly tighter circle while the soldier in the center exchanged his small pistol for a larger one. So it went; eventually the soldier used an issue .45 Colt revolver, finally a rifle, while the troopers kept tightening their circle as long as the horses permitted it. By the end of the training the horses loved to hear the sound of gunfire.
Oddly enough if you’ve ever hunted in grizzly country you know the bears are trained the same way. They hear a gunshot and they know it could mean food. So they’ll come and steal your kill. Let the bear have it. Actually, in Alaska it’s illegal to shoot a bear over a caribou or moose you just shot; you can shoot a bear to protect your property but a Alaska state law doesn’t consider an animal carcass to be your property. Go take another one.
Did you watch the riderless colt race to the finish at the Preakness? The horse didn’t deliberately throw the rider; he just didn’t have his feet in the stirrups and the horse surprised him by going in a slightly different direction out of the gate and he fell off. And his colt finished the race on his own because Thoroughbreds love to run and many become naturally competitive. It’s what they were born to do.
It strikes me that the animal rights crowd knows nothing about animals. Someday they’ll probably declare horse racing cruel, and they’ll be just as wrong then as they were about the diving horses.
Perhaps the oldest horse training manual extant was written by Xenophon of Athens (431B.C.-354B.C.). He was a student of Socrates, a philosopher in his own right, a historian, and a brilliant soldier and mercenary. He became an officer of the Ten Thousand after all the senior officers foolishly fell into a trap. They had been hired by Cyrus The Younger to wrest the throne from his brother. They fought in one battle, The Battle of Cunaxa, and were so devastating that while repeatedly routing the Persian forces sent against them only one Greek was even wounded. Unfortunately Cyrus was killed making their victory and expedition pointless. Xenophon led the Ten Thousand on a fighting retreat from the heart of the Persian empire with no supplies, no friends, but plenty of enemies. He wrote about it in his book, The Anabasis. If you’re interested read it, but keep in mind that no matter how amazing the story becomes he wasn’t exaggerating. He didn’t need to.
One might think such a man would resort to the whip, but he didn’t. As he said in “Art of Horsemanship” anything a horse does under compulsion is done blindly and without understanding. He was training war horses, one must understand. The environs of Athens, Attica, were too poor to indulge in pleasure horses. While some may have resorted to force one gets the impression that many others didn’t. It was stupid and self-defeating. What a mounted soldier needs in a war horse is a bold, courageous horse with an unbroken spirit. The way to achieve that is through kindness and with rewards, not with the whip. As Xenophon put it, a dancer doesn’t leap highest and most gracefully when whipped. She has to want to do it. So must a horse.
Here’s a link to a translation of his treatise. Older ones were certainly written, but they’re lost to time.
http://www.westkingdom.org/sites/default/files/The%20Art%20of%20Horsemanship.pdf
I grew up around horses. I used to work in stables as a kid so I handled horses. If anyone is old enough to remember the Oakland A’s used to have a palomino mule named Charlie O as a mascot. My claim to fame; I used to muck out his stall. I’m not a great rider though, even though I have been able to convince a horse on occasion that I knew what I was doing and gain his/her trust, and even after I get my double hip replacement I may never mount a horse again. But I know enough about horses to know this. If those horses didn’t want to dive from those towers no amount of human force could have made them do it.