About this item

.It was the signature attraction of Atlantic City's Steel Pier from the 1930s to the 1970s, the golden age of "America's Favorite Playground"--Doc Carver's High Diving Horses. Four times a day, seven days a week, a trained horse wearing only a harness ran up a ramp; a diving girl jumped on its back, and both sailed forty feet through the air, plunging into a ten foot deep tank of water.Decades later, after cries of animal abuse, and changing times, the act was finally shuttered and the very Last Atlantic City Steel Pier Diving Horse was on the auction block. The author, on a rescue mission for her employer, animal rights pioneer Cleveland Amory, and $2,600 later spent in a fierce auction, Gamal, gleaming coated, commanding, was hers: she who knew almost nothing about horses.