Simon Bolivar could dismount by front flip over head of horse?

[dakrause]

The South American liberator Simon Bolivar was, as described Marie Arana’s biography of Simon Bolivar, able to dismount by way of a front flip over the head of his horse. This would have been a deliberately acrobatic maneuver that, by the way, helped build credibility amongst those who would follow him into battle.

Has anyone ever heard of such a dismount? If not, do you who might have heard of such a dismount? I imagine it might be possible for someone with significant acrobatic skill, I’d love to find a video of such a dismount!

[Ambitious_Kate]

If you imagine what kids do on skateboards, snowboards, wakeboards, it isn’t hard to extrapolate a young, fit, enthusiastic horseman finding all kinds of ways to flip around on a horse. I would imagine once he did it at a halt, he next was trying at various gaits.

[Willesdon]

I’ve dismounted by way of a front flip on a couple of occasions, propelled by the massive buck happening underneath me, lol.

[endlessclimb]

I once thought it would be super cool to slide down the neck of my horse. I did so successfully a few times, and decided to show my mom. Hey Mom, look what I can do!

… except that time, my horse had had enough of my stupidity, and threw his head right when I was nearing his ears.

Many front flips were done before I hit the ground.

[dakrause]

Wow, thank you all for your replies!

I had previously heard that Bolivar was capable of riding tirelessly to the point that he was jokingly called “iron ass” by his followers, this is the first time I hear mention of potential acrobatics on horseback that could help explain why his horsemen were so willing to follow him to hell and back!

[Jackie_Cochran]

Living as a child in South America I heard a good bit about Simon Bolivar, but nothing much about his ability to ride a horse.

Now I have a new, greater appreciation for him! Thank you!

A truly monumental figure in South American history.

[dakrause]

From: Gavin Martin gavin@internationalstuntacademy.com
Sent: Tuesday, January 9, 2024 11:39 AM
Subject: Front Flip Horse Dismounts - the International Stunt Academy

Hello David
Thank you for such an interesting question!
I hadn’t heard of this story before, but that style of dismount is certainly possible. We use specially trained horses so they are very happy and relaxed with unusual maneuvers.
Sadly I don’t have film footage of this but some of our team are highly acrobatic and while training Horse Stunts we have done various flips to dismount, including an over-head to the front. That manoeuvre is only really useful for showmanship as there’s a risk of the horse running you over if its in motion, but if you can haul up to a good stop and flip forward it does make for a cool finish. You may be interested to know that this is also a very popular trick with Motorcycle stunt riding, so while the horse may have been modernised the old tricks remain the same!
Regards
Gavin

[dakrause]

Motorcycle flip dismounts:

learn2flip - practicing a flip dismount

and
https://www.youtube.com/shorts/yayLjOvmQXo

[dakrause]

From: Gavin Martin gavin@internationalstuntacademy.com
Subject: Re: Front Flip Horse Dismounts - the International Stunt Academy

Hi David

It certainly does benefit to have an Iron Ass if you’re going to do many miles on horseback! haha. In Europe, if you can do 1000 miles in a day on motorbike you are awarded the title of ‘Iron Butt’.

We train Horse Stunts and include acrobatics in that training because there are many historical and film / TV applications for this. For example, if you explore Cossack riding you’ll learn to ride on the side of the horse or go under the belly and come up on the other side, while the horse is galloping. The benefits of being acrobatic on a horse, in many horse cultures were also a way of demonstrating your prowess or competing socially, but in practical terms, these skills allowed riders to shield themselves, quickly move out of the way of weaponry or perform more advanced mounted combat movements. Many great American western films feature these sorts of moves in the way the cowboys would fight, fire, avoid gunfire or mount / dismount / leap to horses, train and stagecoaches. In fact some of the earliest cinema and earliest filmed stunts were acrobatic horse stunts!

Next time we do some horse acrobatic work I will keep this in mind and perhaps we can recreate Simon Bolivar’s famous forward flip dismount so there’s some film of how it is performed online for the future.

Best Regards
Gavin