While I suspect that Cecil is correct, I just thought that I would note that when I was in Russia around…1991(?) we were visiting some palace or another and they showed off the fabled horse harness that had been used to lift the beasts for the Tsarina. Most likely fabricated for tourists, but it certainly remained in the memory.
Edit: Though to be honest, it’s possible that someone unrelated to the tour or the museum pointed to something that looked thatish and told me the story, but in truth it wasn’t nor was it intended to be.
I truly wish I were as quick on my mental feet as is needed to be a successful tour guide. You want a fantastic lie to support your preconceptions? I’d be there for you. But no, my first reaction would be to quote Unca Cece.
Don’t think we visited there. And as said in the edit, it’s possible that it was another tourist who claimed the whatever-it-was to be a horse harness and my memory perverted the recollection to be more concrete than that.
This is purely secondhand, but I knew someone in college who also claimed to have seen the fabled horse-lifting harness while visiting some palace in Russia.
I guess ignorance can be fought in many ways… I always thought the harness was for Catherine to strap herself onto the horse.
The image never made much sense, but, to me anyway, the idea of lifting the horse doesn’t really work either.
It would make more sense to have some type of jig in the form of a mare’s rump that would have room for the woman to position herself inside (facing down) so that the male could mount the jig in the same way as he would mount a mare. The structure would have to be substantial enough to take the weight of the horse without undue consequences to the woman of course.
I’m surprised the hoary old chestnut of a ‘powerful female’ in a ‘masculine world’ and needing ‘to be put in her place’ was not trotted out the way it usually is in similar other stories.
When I was a senior in high school we did a unit on Russian history in our European History class and discussed (and debunked) this rumor. A couple days later, knowing our teacher would get a kick out of it, a friend of mine drew a picture of Catherine and the horse on the blackboard. A few minutes later, in walks the teacher with another woman – a reporter for the newspaper. It was Januray 16, 1991, and she decided a good story would be to get local high schoolers’ opinions on the Gulf War.
She was disappointed. It’s not that we weren’t game, but we were desparately trying not to burst out in laughter. And every single one of us was concentrating on that task so hard, we knew if we opened our mouths for any other purpose, we’d let loose. Our teacher, Mrs. Mogen, could tell that something was wrong, but didn’t know what. As the reporter tried ever more desparately to get someone to say something worth printing, someone, whether through gestures or telepathy, signalled Mrs. Mogen to look on the board. She turned around, let out a loud “whoop” and, in the tenth of a second before the reporter turned to see why, she grabbed the eraser and removed the evidence. When the reporter asked what happened, Mrs. Mogen looked at her angelically and said, “Oh, nothing.”
Soon, confronted by our wall of silence (now joined by the teacher!) , the reporter gave up and left in disgust. I think we managed to last until she got three steps away before we erupted in enough laughter to shake the building.
Almost certainly fabricated. A harness is designed to let the horse pull things; it could not be used to lift a horse without injuring the horse. And most harnesses would break before or while lifting the horse.
In fact, it’s pretty hard to lift a horse safely – veterinarian hospitals have special slings that are designed to do this. They are somewhat complicated and rather expensive.
Such devices are common on horse breeding farms. Google ‘artificial mare’ for more info, photos, prices, etc. (Except they are designed to have a semen collection container inside, not a live woman!)
Yes, that begs the question - how wide would a set of straps have to be to lift and suspend a horse for a decent(???) length of time without having the horse so uncomfortable it starts to get dangerous? Just from memory, various horse-lifting devices in movies (i.e. getting the horse on the boat in “Black Stallion”) are canvas slings the length of the horse’s undercarriage. It would be hard to access the plug(?) for oil changes or other servicing?
If the Russian contraption was just a pair of narrow leather straps, then obviously a fake.
You can see from a cursory search of the internet, it is not necessary to lift the horse.
I’d be more curious how Catherine managed to avoid producing heirs by the bushel with her selection of cavalry officers…
