Buckles Blog: The Clarke Family #5

Monday, July 05, 2010

Scan13040, originally uploaded by bucklesw1.

The Clarkonians.

Roger Smith said...: These two men, Ernest flying and Charles catching, are credited with being the first to consistently accomplish the triple. Thinking back to the film TRAPEZE (running again Wednesday on TCM), Burt Lancaster's character, Mike Ribble, yearned for the "two-act" and its purity. This is what these men performed. There was no one on the rigging to drop bars for the flying return. Ernest had to leave the bar with such precision that it did not veer aside, and would swing correctly back for his release from his brother. Their tricks had to work to demanding timing to assure completion. Ernest's fly bar was engineered to a specific weight over lengthy experimentation, and was generally known as the heaviest in flying.

Alfredo Codona was sometimes given credit for first conquering the triple, but had such respect for Ernest Clarke that he publicly corrected the misimpression. His flying days over, Codona served as Equestrian Director on Hagenbeck-Wallace, and once called Mr. Clarke to Center Ring, to announce, "I have often been given credit for being the first to perform the triple. But here is the man who caught it before I learned to fly."; 06 July, 2010 04:03

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