Tuesday 12 March 2013

horse diving. for real, horse diving

How the hell have I never heard about this before? Now I can't think of anything else. Diving horses were a tourist attraction at Atlantic City for years, then they went away, then they came back. This one was from 1993, of all crazy things. Then they went away again.

Wikipedia says Doc Carver got the idea when a bridge broke and his horse fell in. Or, as Carver put it, 'dived'. His partner was Al Floyd Carver, who seems likely to have been a relation, and who married Sonora Webster, one of the riders.

Sonora's horse Red Lips slipped and fell in 1931 (I bet Doc would have called this a dive, but Doc was dead by now). The fall cost Sonora her sight, but she carried on anyway.

As a result of this, I also lost time to a great blog called Redneck Liberals and to the Fahey/Klein photography gallery. What about this! And this. And this. And, of course, this.

I am normally wary about retweeting and reposting reviews, because, you know, for all the obvious reasons. However, my day was genuinely made by Queenie on Amazon: 'This book was on a radio 4 programm and sounded really good. It was the most boring book I have ever read.' This is great! The only way she could have heard about the book on the radio was from listening to me talk about it! I knew I was good on radio.

(By the way, when you saw the diving horses I bet you thought, 'This would be a great way to advertise a President!' You weren't the first.)

No comments: