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June 28th, 2018: Horse diving
More accurately horse and woman diving.
A woman on a horse diving from a high platform into a small pool of water, an act that started in, but outlived, the Wild West Shows.
Buffalo Bill Cody started it all in 1883 and soon followed by several other shows all prominently featuring macho feats of skill and daring.
There were plenty of women performers trick riding, roping and shooting, after all they wanted to sell tickets to men too.
The one that caught my eye was California frank Hafley’s show…
| Hafley’s show heavily featured women in rodeo events like the sharpshooting comedy routine in which Lillian Smith, a former competitor of Annie Oakley’s and Hafley’s first wife, shot targets from the mouth or head of Mamie Francis, Hafley’s second wife. |
Maybe he was a Mormon and they got along.
| Among the most popular performances at Wild West Attractions was a new sport with a dubious connection to the West: horse diving, an event in which a horse and its female rider jumped from a 50-foot tower into a small pool of water. It took more courage than all the other events combined, and only Mamie Francis had the gumption to do it. Between 1908 and 1914, Francis and her Arabian horse Babe completed 628 dives from five stories up a rickety wooden scaffolding. |
| Indeed, there was great risk in diving into a pool from heights of up to 60 feet on the back of a 1,000-pound wingless animal into a pool of murky water, sometimes at night. Remarkably, both Francis and Webster Carver managed to survive their diving careers more or less intact. Francis once broke an arm when Babe landed on her and nearly drowned in June 1909 when she was pinned underwater, but neither injury stopped her from performing. Webster Carver had a rougher go of it. Eight years into her performances, a dive in which she hit the water with her eyes open resulted in a retinal detachment that blinded her for the rest of her life. |
| As portrayed in the 1991 film Wild Hearts Can’t Be Broken, against all odds, Webster Carver continued to dive at Atlantic City’s Steel Pier, where the show was permanently installed in 1929, until the age of 38. For their courage, horse-diving women were compensated better than women in most other professions at the time. When she signed on to Carver’s show in 1924, Webster Carver earned $125 per week ($1,800 a week in today’s sums) during the summer, when she would dive up to five times a day — more than eight times what she had been making as a department store bookkeeper in Savannah. |
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Diaphone Jim Thursday Jun 28 12:30 PM
That's just crazy! Times 628.
It is hard to look at.
xoxoxoBruce Thursday Jun 28 02:00 PM
Have to find a horse that likes it, crazy as that sounds some do. The girl is baggage, she's not controlling the horse at all, if she got off the horse would still climb the ramp and jump.
Gravdigr Thursday Jun 28 02:20 PM
Fuck the diving! They trained a horse to climb a ladder!?
Diaphone Jim Thursday Jun 28 04:08 PM
"I can't swim."
The classic next line says it all.
Gravdigr Thursday Jun 28 04:58 PM
Butch and Sundance?
Great line.
sexobon Thursday Jun 28 05:25 PM
I didn't see any signs around the pool that say "No horseplay"; so, I guess it was OK.
Griff Friday Jun 29 08:47 AM
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Originally Posted by Diaphone Jim
That's just crazy! Times 628.
It is hard to look at. |
Gravdigr Friday Jun 29 02:14 PM
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Originally Posted by sexobon
I didn't see any signs around the pool that say "No horseplay"; so, I guess it was OK.
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captainhook455 Friday Jun 29 08:06 PM
This horse had balls for sure or maybe one ball.
Diaphone Jim Saturday Jun 30 08:28 PM
I think that's his or her left hock.
Griff Monday Jul 2 07:57 AM
I just got thinking about this thread as I watched an Amish dude drive his horse in Richford (Central New York). Sometimes we forget that horses were tools back-in-the-day and treated as such. This Amish horse was dusty and lean but in very good shape for work. I'm sure a modern horse person would be offended that he wasn't combed out all pretty. Perspective can be a funny thing,.. I still don't like the diving horse thing, it seems like needless cruelty.
No horseplay is petty funny though.
Gravdigr Monday Jul 2 03:40 PM
I was driving through Amish country the other day. Temp was mid 90's. I was inching down this narrow little lane in GC1 when I met a guy head on, he was walking, Amish fellow, of course.
Every inch of the guy looked like he just stepped out of a swimming pool. He was almost dripping, he was so soaked with sweat.
Except for about ten inches at the bottom of his pants. That was the only dry clothing he had on.
My internal temp went up about 40 degrees.
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