Saturday, February 22, 2014

Opening Night #6



10 comments:

Chic Silber said...


Roger Smith kindly notice the

bridles on the mesh arena ring

As I recall we always had more

that the single haulaway you

mentioned a while back but not

as nice as shown here

I guess it's for the mesh arena

that the sole ring curb remains

John Herriott said...

Charley, Gunther and Cuneo all had alot more cats in their acts. Seems like this is the fewest for quite some time.johnny

John Herriott said...

Certainly it is a fine, well presented act.johnny

John Herriott said...

What are bridles? I am lost.tanglefoot

Chic Silber said...


Hi Johnny in rigging either it

be rope or cable when 2 or more

lines are attached (or spliced)

into 1 to distribute the load

the term bridle is used (& more

often misused differently)

In this case it's the pairs of

lines tied to the top ring that

are attached to 2 hauling lines

Chic Silber said...


Can't tell by the recent photos

but even Brunon may work more

Perhaps Paul Gutheil can say

Chic Silber said...


Yup John fewer of all the major

animals cats horses & elephants

At least we can remember when

Soon it will all be digital

Paul Gutheil said...

Brunon had 7 cats in White Plains.
6 Standard and one white.

Roger Smith said...

If by "we", you mean in your time there, then you weren't there when that thing was pulled up by one block. Charlie White had Props then. Who knows who, but someone eventually had the rigging sense to recognize the hazard of relying on one rope to sustain that net. It is clear no one on Ringling ever experienced a hey-rube when the big cats prove themselves wild animals.

Chic Silber said...


In your original note about the

"single block" it seemed you

were refering to supporting the

entire mesh arena & now only

the top perimeter net which

makes more sense to me Roger

Very little stress on that line