Thursday, September 06, 2007

Hugo Schmitt #4


hugo1, originally uploaded by bucklesw1.


This one is from the '71 or '72 season, his last on the road.

Posted by Buckles at 9/06/2007 06:00:00 AM

18 comments:

Anonymous said...

The last time I saw and visited with Mr.Hugo was the year the RBBB opened the second unit.It was at the will Roger coliseum in Fort Worth Tx. Al Antonucci was also on the show I guess that would be John standing behind him what year would that have been?

06 September, 2007 11:51
Buckles said...

Hugo's last years on the road was the 1970-71 100th Anniversary tour.
Yes that is "John" behind him.

06 September, 2007 12:04
Anonymous said...

What kinda whip is that????

06 September, 2007 14:18
Anonymous said...

To Casey,
That is a twisted willow stock with a four plaid thong also, incidentally Clyde Beatty was indeed a cat trainer and presenter.

06 September, 2007 19:04
Anonymous said...

casey i may be wrong and blind but is it a twisted willow whip ? Clean Raul

06 September, 2007 19:21
Anonymous said...

Casey, I couldn't decide if I should be the first one to respond to your question or not. Should have known James C. Hall would have taken advantage of my split second of indecision. I was going to tell you it was the kind that all great trainers used, and why were you even interested. Wade Burck

06 September, 2007 19:51
Anonymous said...

Casey...Now that Mr. Circus (Hall) has informed you it is a "Twisted Willow" Next time you visit Mr. Burck, ask him to show you his "Lockhart whip"... Oh thats right...Gyp ate it!...never mind....

06 September, 2007 19:57
Anonymous said...

As soon as you think walking on the moon is man's greatest achievement, something occurs which make's it pale in comparison. In less than 1 hour(60 min.) four people from different parts of the United States, were able to deliver a "backdoor shot" to someone.
Gentlemen, I for one, will be proud to tell my grand kids someday, "yes, it really happened. Grandpa was there." Buckles, thank you for providing the medium for this historical event. Wade Burck

06 September, 2007 23:59
Anonymous said...

Well here I go again. As a big fan of Clyde Beatty and a person that was able to work with him on winter dates and awed by seeing him in action. I recall that he used aslighter more refined Australian type whip with nicely covered stock and I assume a Kangaroo hyde lash. It would be easier to pop or crack in his manner of presentation and quickly exchanged for various reasons by his "gun boy" outside the cage. Hugo and Axel did use the very heavy version of the twisted stok and heavy lash as well, along with a heavy thick popper as well and I can assure you when they rolled it out the elephants were aware that they meant business. I, for one never had much succes with elephant lash whips. The animals just closed their eyes and dummied up.

Maybe Roger SWmith would comment on my Beatty observations.

For some reason my Dad always braided his poppers tying of with a half hitch every one and a half inch or so. Maybe from the old school. Terrel Jacobs showed me how to start with five strands of Barbour thread, bees waxed and at each tie off remove a strand so at the end you had two strands twisted together and narrowed down for better balance. Naturally Terrel used thicker strands for a cat trainers whip than I did for a liberty horse whip.

07 September, 2007 08:58
Anonymous said...

Col. Herriott, you are correct. Pictures of Beatty I have seen I alway's saw a shorter stiff stock, similar to a Lockhart, without the hook. I didn't have the courage to point it out to Jimmy. Also when agitating, it is not necessary to be 100% accurate. Axel's whip was the most impressive tool I have ever seen. The few times he said, "try it", I couldn't lift it, let alone throw it. But in his hand's it was a conductors baton. Wade Burck

07 September, 2007 09:23
Anonymous said...

Col., On the subject of whip type's, I am grateful that I had a thin horse whip in my hand's, and not a thick twisted willow, the day you "suggested" I put the whip "someplace", until I learned how to use it correctly. I actually passed that same "sage" advise on to my son one time. Wade Burck

07 September, 2007 09:50
Casey McCoy Cainan said...

Wrong Casey, or an impostor. Being educated by Larry Allen Dean about whips, I knew immediately that was a very nice twisted willow,with nice snake belly thong, not a cheap Louis Knie knock off like Mr Burck uses. Now Wade don't get your "swivel" in a bind, that split second of indecision is why Mr Hall gets the title Mr. Circus, and you will be remembered as the Tiger Training Cowboy, from Gardenhose ND.

07 September, 2007 10:05
Anonymous said...

Lets see the last time I saw Clyde Beatty would have been in 1961 during the season my family was working on the Clyde bros circus. On the Beatty show I recall the Gaona family also the Munoz cannon, if you all will remember Mr. Clyde had his white Cadillac and Airstream parked left of the backdoor. My parents knew him well. I was a younger brat then, and my mother once told me the best vacation she can remember was when Mr. and Mrs. Beatty one fall toured Europe. Do to the fact that my mother spoke seven languages, they took her along as interpreter. I feel confident Beatty knew what a twisted willow stock was, leather covered or not. I used to broker these items. The ones I sold came in several lengths from 18 to 60 inches. Also I sold several of these to some gents who were former cage boys of Beatty. Junior R.,Red Hartman ,and cat men,Hoover ,Swede Johnson and P. Anthony. My former statement was referring to the type of whip in question that Mr. Hugo has in hand. The mentioning of Beatty was what I thought the next question would be and not referring to his whip type. I once tried to help another young cat trainer wanna be to translate the words proratee and Larry. The word proratee was pro rata, a form of payment. This young gent said every time I step out of the arena this circus lady named Bonnie keeps saying "boy you're a real Larry".
In regards to whip poppers I went to school the of R.S. Jones in making the tapered type mentioned bees wax and all. As he was not impressed with me and Gibbs' preferred use of used shoe laces recently acquired from the bunk house.

P.S.
I sold the whip stocks for $6.50 each and made a killing back then.

07 September, 2007 11:08
Anonymous said...

Jimmy, Dummy up, please. Hawthorn is currently paying a second generation of animal trainer, as a rated pro"fessional", and John doesn't need a problem. By the way, she quit calling me a larry, when I dyed my hair blonde, remember. Nice try Casey. There is only one Casey that would ask a dumb question about a whip. You are wrong about the Louis Knie whip I showed you. It was not cheap, it was very expensive. What I told you was, "it was not worth 300.00, because it did not make my tigers as good as his." Wade Burck

07 September, 2007 14:08
Mike Naughton said...

8-10 years ago I visited Mr. J. Herriott on the Hanneford show playing the Schaghticoke Fair (NY).
Having known Johnny for 20 plus years I asked advise on whips as I was purchasing liberty ponies for my show the following winter. I had several Westfield whips in the truck which Johnny grimaced at when he saw the mass-produced poppers. "The whip is fine, the lash too short and the poppers are not "circus poppers".
He took out his tool box, lengthtened the lashes and made several poppers as he described in his above comments. The hands of a surgeon wouldn't be more exact nor fast.
Eventually the poppers wore out...when my oldest daughter was going through our "pony tool box" she said, "What are these things?" I said, "Johnny Herriott made those and I couldn't bear to throw them away so I saved them and put them in a zip lock bag. Those are legendary." The ponies are gone, but the poppers remain.

08 September, 2007 06:29
Anonymous said...

Clyde Beatty's whipstocks were ordered from Germany. We shoved them into a pile of elephant dung for a day to expand the pores of the twisted willow, then rubbed them with warm--not hot--olive oil to keep them supple. Then the retainer loops were tied on with a double strand of waxed Barbour's flax in a special, very tight over-and-under application that kept them from being thrown off the end of the stock during cracking. When the oil soaked in, the excess was wiped off and the 36" stock, hardly short and stiff, but very resilient, was not covered in leather, but with black electrician's tape (note his photos). He never used the Australian stock whip, as shown in the Austral Enterprises catalog, as trick whip acts do. Strictly out of the Old School, he used the stock as described as his mentors had done.

The lash was flat-plaited from three stands of yellow latigo saddle strings. Mr. Beatty made his own, and showed me how the cuts and pulls were plaited to make a 6' lash. The lash was hung and stretched with the weight of a trailer's sway-bar for a day.

His poppers were made of Barbour's flax. Seven strands some 8" long were cut and waxed and set aside. For the main body, 14 strands were doubled to roughly 16", cut, waxed, and halved over a hook. The seven shorter strands were 1/3 on one side, 2/3 on the other on top of the 14, to give the top the reinforced tapering. In 90 seconds, Mr. Beatty could twist and weave the popper downward, keeping one unwaxed strand free for the half-round tie-off every 2" down the work. Once down, he stropped the popper with the ball of beeswax for proper body, and that was that.

I go into further detail in my articles for BACKYARD, which are too long for this blog, but I'll be glad to share them with anyone who still cares about such things.

12 September, 2007 17:21
Anonymous said...

Roger, It's amazing what you described. With the exception of a round lash instead of flat, (Our friend Pat Anthony used flat as I recall.), that is exactly how Lou Regan prepared his whip's, and how I was taught. Lou tied the end of the lash to his belt loop, when he started the flax plait, so it was real secure, and would not slid down, and also, rolled the finished popper under his boot, on a piece of two by four. The finished product was a functional, work of art. Wade Burck
P.S. Where do you get Barbour's flax thread any more?

12 September, 2007 18:34
Anonymous said...

WADE: Mr. Beatty ordered Barbour's Pure Flax Shoe Thread No. 10, from the Linen Thread Company of Blue Mountain, Alabama. There remain no listings for them there now. His came in cases of 8 2-oz. skeins. I remember a nice, gory double-murder case at that company that may have eventually led to their demise. But all is not lost. Try ordering from SFS Associates, 5450 Highland Park Drive, St. Louis MO 63110--(314) 531-1830. Specify Barbour's Hand Shoe Thread Pure Flax No. 10. Ask for their box of 12 4-oz skeins, which is about 3 lbs., costing approx. $116 with shipping. Also look at www.elpasoshops.com, or www.paisanoleather.com--whose code is BHST4, at about $9.50 per tube. Lastly, try Pete Schweiger at pete@scheiger.freeserve.co.uk, for his tray of 20-24 balls of "old soft-spun Barbour's", no price listed, but he's across the pond, so he'll be expensive. FYI, Barbour's flax originated in the UK. And always go for No. 10. No. 12 is too weak. Hope this helps.

In re: the beeswax. Hardcore purist that I am, for Mr. Beatty, I hit up our aerialist friends for a handful of rock rosin, crushed it and melted it over medium heat in a small pot with the beeswax, keeping it stirred until it set. Then I cut it in cakes, and had held to Old School tradition.

Who but showbums would go to such detail to strop a whip popper...?

13 September, 2007 17:19

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