Female Daredevil For Thursday...!

In keeping with my effort to include a post of some women from time to time, I want to talk about female daredevil Sonora Webster Carver.

Not only was she a daredevil, she was the first female horse diver! It takes a lot of courage to do something like that, I'm thinking! I'm putting a short clip of one of her dives on this post as well!

Sonora Webster Carver

For a time in the early 20th century, a stunt involved forcing horses to dive from towers up to 60 feet high. Horse diving sometimes involved people actively riding the horse over the edge of the tower. Sonora Webster Carver was the first woman to become a horse diver.

William “Doc” Carver was the inventor of the act, and he placed an ad calling for “a girl who could swim and dive and was willing to travel.” Sonora Webster answered, and from 1924, she would mount a running horse as it climbed the ramp to the jump and ride it into a pool of water sometimes only 12 feet deep. She married Doc’s son, marrying into the family business.

In 1931, Sonora’s horse Hot Lips made a mistake and tumbled into the water face first, as did Sonora. The shock of the collision detached her retinas and totally blinded her. Despite this, she continued to dive horses for 11 years. Carver lived to be 99.

Imagine the shock of doing something like that with no sight! Heck, I couldn't do it with both eyes open!

Coffee out on the patio. Sorry, but it's getting pretty warm outside!