Horses That Somersault

A brief feature that appeared on the front page of the Washington Post's 'Miscellany Section' (April 21, 1907) caught my attention. I searched for more information about this strange, somersaulting horse, but came up empty.

Google pulls up examples of horses that somersaulted by accident, but none (that I can find) that did it purposefully. See this Daily Mail story from May 2008. So the somersaulting horse from 1907 appears to be unique. And, I'm guessing, probably a hoax of some kind.

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Alex Boese Alex is the creator and curator of the Museum of Hoaxes. He's also the author of various weird, non-fiction, science-themed books such as Elephants on Acid and Psychedelic Apes. Paul Di Filippo Paul has been paid to put weird ideas into fictional form for over forty years, in his career as a noted science fiction writer. Contact Us

Posted By: Alex - Thu Jan 12, 2012
Category: Animals

Comments

I've seen horses fall and do a somersault but I've never even heard of one doing it on command. Although, they're trainable and I've seen them do some pretty strange stuff.

You can Google "horse high-dive" and run into enough material to keep you going for an hour or two.

Posted by Expat47 in Athens, Greece on 01/12/12 at 12:18 PM

He landed on his back, ouch!

Posted by Patty in Ohio, USA on 01/12/12 at 04:25 PM

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