Circus Horses

I was always hanging around the horse tents, helping with the grooming and the feeds, pestering the trainers to be allowed to ride the ponies.

For me, a circus is not complete without horses. Growing up in Britain, I was a big fan of Chipperfields, a circus renowned for their beautiful horses.

One of the best horse trainers in Europe was Mary Chipperfield, who created a liberty act with dancing Arab stallions. Their names - Baghdad, Sceptre, Araby, Sherif, Aurique, Iman, Kismet and Emir, captured the glory of the Arabian horse, one of the most beautiful of all animals.

Mary's skill with animals is the stuff of legend, but it was her Arab stallions that enraptured me.

In Europe, the name of Knie was also synonymous with spectacular horse acts.

Rolf Knie Jnr performed the "Courier of St Petersburg", an arduous act where the rider stands astride two horses, one foot on each, while other horses pass underneath. The rider has to gather up the reins until he is "driving" five horses.

American style trick riding was introduced to Europe by the wild west shows which brought my grandfather to the old world. Buffalo Bill's Wild West Show inspired circuses to put on wild west "spectaculars" decades later. My parents' sharpshooting act was a feature of many of these "speshes", as they were called, and I played the kidnapped Indian Princess more times than I care to remember.

Learning to ride on the circus is second only to learning to walk. Sooner or later you are going to end up on the back of a horse.

On almost every circus there was at least one rosinback, a broad backed heavy horse so called because resin was often used on the horse's back to help provide better grip for the trick rider.

There would usually be a team of liberty horses, and possibly a "talking' or trick horse, able to perform an act on its own, or without the obvious aid of the trainer.

All "tricks" are based on natural behaviors displayed by the animal, so trainers were always on the lookout for an intelligent horse with a variety of behaviors.

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