July 6, 2018 Hello ,
Horse Diving.
One of the most popular, sensational and rare events of the wild west shows traveling America in the early 1900s.
It featured a horse an rider plunging from a 40 to 60-foot high scaffold into a 12-foot-deep pool of water.
The first woman to become
famous performming the stunt may have been a sharpshooting, trick rider in the Pawnee Bill Wild West Show named Mamie Francis Hafley. In 1901 she left home in Wisconsin at the age of 15 to join the production.
Mamie tried horse diving in public for the first time in 1908 at Coney Island with a white Arabian horse named nicknamed Babe. Over the next six years, the team made this flying leap 628 times.
Babe galloped up a ramp, Mamie jumped on her back, they soared off the platform into the water, disappeared for a
suspenseful moment, then shot to the surface, the woman still seated on her mount. If all went well.
Mamie and Babe suffered at least three accidents, the worst of which knocked Mamie unconscious. Bystanders pulled her from the water before she could drown. In another incident, Mamie broke an arm, but didn't allow the injury to stop her
performances.
Only two major wild west troupes featured this daring horse diving event. Not only did it require a willing horse and courageous rider, but Mamie and Babe's wooden tower had to be rebuilt, and a pit dug for the water, every time the show
moved to a new location. Wanted: Girl who can swim, dive and willing to travel.
The advertisement placed by champion marksman Doc Carver caught the eye of Sonora Webster, who left her hometown of Waycross, Georgia in 1923 to become a horse diver.
Doc Carver's son, whom Sonora later married, gave her some tips. "When the horse first drops his feet over the edge, you’ll have the feeling that he’s going to turn a somersault and
that you’re going off over his head but you won’t, and once he actually dives, this sensation will leave. In the meantime don’t panic."
She was fearless, later writing in her autobiography, “I had no saddle, no bridle, no stirrups to brace myself, and the horse had no bit in his teeth … there was nothing for me to hold onto except the strap of the diving harness.” Sonora was not as lucky as Mamie when it came to diving accidents, but she, too, refused to let injury end her career.
By 1931, she was a hit with audiences at Atlantic City's Steel Pier on the New Jersey shore where her act had taken permanent residence. Sonora and her horse Red Lips had preformed perfectly hundreds of times, but one day when they went into a particularly sharp dive, Sonora hit the water face-first with her eyes open, displacing her retinas and blinding her.
She continued horse diving eleven more years until the show closed when America entered World War II, never letting on to her audience that she's lost her eyesight.
Disney released a movie in 1991 Wild Hearts Can't Be Broken based loosely on Sonora Webster Caver's
horse diving career.
It was popular, especially with young girls who loved horses, but you won't be surprised to hear that the book was better than the movie.
Sonora is rumored to have told her sister Annette, who was also part of the horse diving act in Atlantic City,
"The only thing true in [the movie] was that I rode diving horses, I went blind, and I continued to ride for another 11 years."
Her memoir A Girl and Five Brave Horses tells a more accurate and detailed story. The movie seems to have drawn people to read the book and they are not disappointed. One reader on Amazon wrote, "The true story is in fact a remarkable one that is far more interesting, entertaining and inspiring than the film's
product."
Many readers say they were inspired by Sonora's tenacity, resilience and determination to continue as usual after losing her eyesight. One reader who identified herself as being blind wrote, Absent is the wallowing in self pity that many would expect, but rather Carver is almost immediately aware of
her need to do things on her own. Nearly an entire chapter is devoted to explaining how she went about regaining -- or more accurately maintaining -- her own independence."
After retiring from horse diving, Sonora learned Braille and took up a
second career as a Dictaphone typist. She lived to be 99-years-old. Horse diving did have a revival when WWII ended, but was discontinued in the 1970s amid
concerns about animal welfare.
In 1975, the federal government issued stamp to honor Sybil Ludington,
but now
Sybil supporters say the teen rode twice as far as Paul Revere, roughly 40 miles, in the rain, over bad roads, in fear of outlaws, to muster the troops of her father's militia, alerting them to join her father to join the other forces fighting against the British during
the Battle of Danbury.
Now a recent study suggests Sybil never existed. The first account of her ride wasn't published until more than one hundred years after the Revolutionary War and apparently there's no earlier evidence of her night ride. Have you read a great book? Tell me about it. Have a burning question? Let me know. If you know someone who might enjoy my newsletter or books, please forward this e-mail. I will never spam you or sell your email address, you can unsubscribe below anytime with a single mouse click. To find out more about my books, how I help students, teacher and librarians, visit my website at www.MaryCronkFarrell.com. My best, Mary
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