Today, Elio and I went to see Levade Noble Horse Gala, now on its third year. The focus of this year’s show was a little different from the previous two, as it included fewer pure horse performances and more traditional circus acts. The reason for this was that Robert Bronett, the creator of the show, designed this one as a celebration of the 70-year anniversary of one the most prominent of the Swedish circuses, Circus Scott, which is run by the Bronett family. In addition to incorporating more acrobats, trapeze artists and so on, both alone and together with the horses, the show also included Robert Bronett telling interesting anecdotes and stories about Circus Scott and the development of the circus in general. Such as how they came to smuggle a hippo (!) into Sweden.
What happened was that they came in from Germany by train, and at the Swedish border, the customs official checking the content of each train carriage was perhaps a little too lax. He checked what was written with chalk on the outside of each carriage to denote his contents, and after passing by the ‘Lipizzaner Pferde’ and the ‘Arabische Pferde’ carriages, his knowledge of German was apparently not quite enough to suggest to him that he probably should have peeked into the carriage with the ‘Nilpferde’. And well, I guess it did contain a horse ... it just happened to be a river horse. Apparently, it became very popular.
None of those today, though (rules on what animals circuses can use are pretty tight in Sweden these days), just several breeds of horses (Shetland Ponies, Arabians, Camargue Horses, Welsh Cob, Connemaras, Lusitanos, Orlov Trotters and Friesians—alas, not many Andalusians this year) and a dog. The acts shown ranged from liberty dressage to Hungarian Post and a quadrille, to name just a few. I liked quite a few of them, though I did miss having an ‘Airs Above the Ground’ section, as has been the case the previous years when they have had a large group of Andalusians. The quadrille with the Lusitanos was, however, very nice. There were definitely fewer really innovative horse acts this time, though, and quite a few repetitions (albeit of good acts) from the previous two years.
There were also a few little slips, and although this is to be expected when working with animals, it was a little curious that so many happened tonight. I am wondering if the half hour delay due to technical problems might have thrown some horses and riders off stride. Most of them were pretty minor, save for the accident that occurred during the finale almost right in front of our seats. One of the horses was doing a pirouette when it slipped and managed to get tangled with the ropes around the arena as well as slipped one leg under the raised platform where the seats were placed. Fortunately, it got free from underneath the platform without any injury, and then it stopped trashing around and kept very still as people disentangled it from the ropes. No doubt its training saved it from panicking too badly, and I was very relieved to see it get up without any problem and to happily show off for a bit while getting applauded on its way out of the arena.
We finished off with a visit to the stables, to have a closer look at some of the pretty horses. Circus horses are very mouthy and beg for treats in a totally shameless fashion, but I guess that comes from how they’re trained. A couple of the Lusitanos were very insistent, and really made me wish I had brought something so I could have asked if they could get a few pieces. As it was, they tried to eat the camera, and I had to be careful with my black coat to keep it away from any too friendly white horses.