Saturday, November 18, 2006

Today's Training Lesson!



"Oblique" is a Military command. For example "Left Face!" means a 90 degree turn to the left but "Left Oblique!" is only a 45 degree turn, as these Barnum & Bailey elephants are seen doing in the 1910's. This was always the opening trick, sort of an introduction, after circling and lining up at the back of the ring, the command was "Oblique" then the next command was "Alright, Change!" and they would then repeat the trick but in the other direction as seen above.
The two tuskers are "Chief" (notice the martingale) and "Pilate".
At one time this trick was quite common and accomplished by horses, ponies and even zebras. Posted by Picasa

Posted by Buckles at 11/18/2006 06:28:00 AM

9 comments:

Anonymous said...

Don't mean to be a bother, but I am wondering about the Elephant "Queenie" that is presently on the L.E. Barnes and Bailey. I took a bunch of photos of her and am making a book to give my nephew for Christmas. I wanted to include her history. If anyone can help, I thank you in advance.

18 November, 2006 12:13
Anonymous said...

Somewhere over the years, I've seen a photo of zebras doing the oblique, and my hat is off to any trainer who did it.

We've also seen the oblique with tigers. Always an impressive display.

18 November, 2006 13:20
Anonymous said...

The things this blog sparks in memory...

Someone please assist this one: There was a tiger act featuring the oblique, wherein they laid down and the trainer would call each by name, at which time the tiger would pose his head in the oblique over his neighbor's, right down the line, until all formed this outstanding feat of training. I don't believe I ever knew the name of this trainer, but it was a European man. Can someone name him?

18 November, 2006 14:31
Anonymous said...

The oblique is very common with European liberty horse acts, especially at Circus Knie in Switzerland, where zebras also perform the move. Sacha Houcke's zebras performed this move in his debut on the Red Unit. Freddie Knie Jr.'s tigers may have performed the oblique, but I am not sure. With liberty horses the oblique is also known as the neck-over-neck routine, and it may be performed to the left and right. There is also a neck-over-hindquarter routine where the horses stand side by side in opposite directions, and each horse lays its head and neck over the hindquarters of the horse next to it.
-Chris Joyce

18 November, 2006 15:23
Bob Cline said...

Roger,
I sent Buckles a photo from the Hagenbeck show of the zebras doing the oblique that was posted maybe two weeks ago.
Josip Marcan trained and presented the tiger Obligue. Perhaps someone else as well.
Bob

18 November, 2006 15:28
Anonymous said...

I just recentley trained the oblique with the six Stevie Corona liberty Freisians figuring its a nice oblique of all horses looking the same. When I started working elephants some sixty years ago that was the first salute in any elephant act. Daniel Suskow routined iy niceley when he worked for Tarzan. We used to do , " oblique right, oblique left and then oblique right in the middle". The MacDonald trained Cristiani elephants did it and Oscar would call out the command, "bleech". Nowadays the command is just "trunk, foot, salute". The young folk don't want to hear that, "back in the old days".

18 November, 2006 17:17
Anonymous said...

The trainer I was remembering was long before Marcan, likely on "Rings Around the World."

If I can't remember a zebra oblique photo from two weeks ago, I need to file a grievance with the House of Seagrams.

18 November, 2006 17:48
Anonymous said...

I've seen this with tigers,both italian tiger trainers, Nones and Bertolucci. One of these may be the one your talking about Roger. Jim Clubb would probably know.

18 November, 2006 23:11
Anonymous said...

The Zebras on the Kinoshita Circus in Japan do the oblique. I believe there may have been a picture posted here a few weeks ago.

19 November, 2006 10:37

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