Horsing Around with the Circus

Ringling Brothers was always identified with its elephants. But just as prominent were the show horses. And let me say right up front that I never met a horse I didn’t hate as a clown.

Circus historians are agreed that the first real circus was created by Philip Astley in England around 1770. Astley had been a cavalry soldier, and he doted on horses. His show was mostly horses, and was so well-received that eventually it went on tour as far as Washington D.C., where the Father of our Country took in a performance. (The historical record is silent on whether or not he was able to chew a bag of popcorn with his wooden teeth.) As other circuses popped up around our lusty new nation they all emulated Astley’s, featuring horses by the dozens -- and even the clowns had to have a mule to jest with. Elephants were a much later addition, starting around 1880.

My feud with horses started right at the beginning, during my first ‘Spec’ performance. Spec is short for spectacular. It is the parade-cum-bacchanal that ends the first half of the show. That first season I began the Spec parade in a rhinestone-encumbered marching band costume, complete with a shako that weighed no less than twenty pounds; it relocated my center of gravity, putting it near my Adam’s apple.  

I tottered behind a pair of Clydesdales that had every appearance of docile gentleness. But they had it in for me. As they clopped around the arena with me behind they dumped a steaming load that I didn’t see in time to avoid. My brand new fancy ballet slippers were engulfed in a fragrant loaf that left its mark and odor for several months after.

But that was not the end.

After marching around the track, desperately trying to keep my shako from toppling me over like a bowling pin, I had to make a quick costume change and come back out to the Spec promenade dressed as a girl rabbit, complete with checkered tutu and a huge papier mache head that narrowed my vision down to a tunnel of light obscured by a fine mesh screen. All but blind, I was led by one of the horse handlers to a spot in front of a fine pair of milk white Arabians and told to hold their halters and lead them around the arena. When I attempted this the nags threw a hissy fit; one of them bit my rabbit head, taking off a goodly chunk of ear. And the other one head butted me on the shoulder, sending me spinning into a guy wire and then onto a metal elephant tub. Badly shaken, I gamely got up and tried to lead those creatures again. This time they reared up, ready to squash me like a bug; only the timely intervention of a horse handler saved me from a permanent quietus.

“I guess they don’t like your costume” he said nonchalantly as I waited for my heart to cease beating out a rapid tattoo. “Just walk over by the llama and wave at the kiddies.”

I took his advice with alacrity. I’m not sure of my zoology here, but llamas must be related to horses, since the one I sidled up to greeted me with a gob of spit the size of a golf ball. I realized at that moment that quadrupeds and I were not fated to be good buds.

45 years ago Ringling had around forty horses on the Blue Unit. They were caparisoned with ornate blankets and saddles, to be ridden in parades by the aristocracy of the circus. The show featured several dressage acts, stately and synchronized down to a nanosecond. The days of Poodles Hanneford and his rowdy horse shenanigans was long gone. Those horse trainers and handlers considered themselves the ‘ancien regime’ of the circus world, their position of superiority usurped by parvenu lion tamers and trapeze artists. They lived in a world of their own, mostly British-flavored and so horsey that even the roustabout who shoveled out the horse dung carried a riding crop.

Tommy Tomkins, who had headlined on the Bertram Mills Circus in England as a lad, was the head equestrian handler. He sported a huge Colonel Blimp mustache and is the only person I ever knew who actually used a monocle. His riding breeches were high, wide, and handsome. He appeared to be perpetually ready for a fox hunt; going so far as to gulp a generous stirrup cup of Pimm’s No. 1 Cup each morning, and repeating this fine old English foxhunting tradition several more times during the day, and into the evening, until his ruddy features took on the glow of a blast furnace. He addressed every clown the same way: “You there, fellow.” His manner was so baronial I had to resist the urge to knuckle my forehead when in his presence.

The trainers and handlers all enjoyed some special perks with the show. Horse lovers flocked to their side before, between, and after the shows, to discuss the evils of boxwalking and who was running at the Preakness that year. These tony visitors always brought large hampers of smoked salmon, imported cheeses, a large selection of digestive biscuits, and plenty of wine. More equestrians came down with gout than were ever injured by a horse while on the show. In return, several of the dicier handlers sold the visitors the cream of the crop for amazingly discounted prices. When the buyer would show up on moveout night to collect his or her bargain, both the handler and the hayburner would be long gone back into the bowels of the circus train. As the concessionaires were fond of saying, “Yez pay yer money and yez take yer chances!”

I attempted detente with those blasted horses several times, trying to bribe them with apples and carrots. But their lustrous eyes never held any sympathy for me. Halfway through the season I got too close to the back of an Andalusian and was kicked in the chest so hard that the imprint of the horseshoe lingered like a bad tattoo for several years.  

During all my years with the circus the horses continued to nip at me and try to step on my clown shoes. They shied when I was near and shook their manes at me in a disparaging manner when I was yards away. I learned to give them a wide berth. To this day I won’t approach a horse, not even a Shetland pony, without wearing a Kevlar vest and carrying a halberd.