From the photos it doesn't look like the horses "launched themselves" - it looks like the platform was collapsed underneath them and they had no choice in the matter.
” it looks like the platform was collapsed underneath them and they had no choice in the matter.”
Nope.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JfMRAzB-hnA
WRONG.
The wooden things are to ensure the Horse didn’t get entangled or wind up too close to the platform should they fall...
Here is an actual video of it
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mX7JIjEBM0U
And another video..
The platform did not FALL and drop them, they lept.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vY8G9vV67Ww
No, that board is fixed in that position. It enables the horse to make a solid push outward with its hooves that it could not get from leaping off just the horizontal.
There is no hinge or trap door.
Saw a team of diving mules in Missouri in the late 70s or early 80s. There was no surprise drop, no one had to drive them up the ramp or give them a tug or shove.
They were the calmest animals, both before and after the dives. Their coats were beautiful, and they didn’t shy away from people at all, as they would if they had been mishandled.
If they didn’t want to go up there, there was no way to force an animal that big to go up that ramp by itself if it had a bad prior experience with it yesterday or in the past.
No, the horses went up the ramp voluntarily and jumped on their own.
My family went to Atlantic City in the mid-1950s and we went to the horse diving performance on the Steel Pier.
My Dad took a color slide of the dive and I still have it.