Allegedly, in 1881 Carver was crossing a bridge over Platte River (Nebraska) which partially collapsed.

The show became a permanent fixture at Atlantic City's popular venue Steel Pier.

[3] In Lake George, New York, the Magic Forest theme park hosted a diving horse feature beginning in 1977, originally featuring a horse named Rex, later replaced by a gelding named Lightning.

However, changes in sea level at the pier turned out to have been caused by the weight of the crowds gathered to watch the diving horses.

Measurements from 1929 to 1978 indicated sea level rise – when the crowds were regular and caused the pier to settle slightly in the soft, sandy bottom – except during the horse-jumping hiatus from 1945 to 1953 when the lack of regular crowds allowed the pier to rise slightly.