The Last Diving Horse in America: Rescuing Gamal and Other Animals

It was the signature of Atlantic City’s Steel Pier in the golden age of “America’s Favorite Playground”: Doc Carver’s High Diving Horses. Four times a day, a trained horse ran up a ramp, a diving girl jumped onto its back, and together they plunged, to thunderous applause, into a ten-foot-deep tank of water. Decades later, after cries of animal abuse and changing times, the act was shuttered, and in May 1980, the last Atlantic City Steel Pier diving horse was placed on the auction block in Indian Mills, New Jersey. The author, who had seen the act as a child and had been haunted by it, was sent to rescue him. $2,600, and Gamal, gleaming-coated, majestic, commanding, was hers; she who knew almost nothing about horses was now the owner of the last diving horse in America.

Cynthia Branigan tells the magical, transformative story of how horse and new owner (who is trying to sort out her own life, feeling somewhat lost herself and in need of rescuing) come to know each other, educate each other, and teach each other important lessons of living and loving. She writes of her search for Gamal’s past, and of how rescuing and caring for Gamal led to her saving other animals — burros, llamas, and goats — opening up, for both them and herself, a whole new surprising but purposeful world. This is a captivating tale of the power of animals and the love that can heal the heart and restore the soul.

No results found.