Sonora died at the age of 99 on September 20, 2003. She remarked to Arnette after screening the film that 'the only thing true in it was that I rode diving horses, I went blind, and I continued to ride for another 11 years.' She was disappointed in the way that the movie depicted her life and career. Sonora's account can be read in her 1961 book, A Girl and Five Brave Horses, and seen in the fictionalized movie version of her life, Wild Hearts Can't Be Broken, starring Gabrielle Anwar. In all the years of the act, there was never a horse that was injured.' They never found anything because those horses lived the life of Riley. ( Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals) was always snooping around, trying to find if we were doing anything that was cruel to animals. The horse was in charge.' Īrnette, who was 15 when she took her first horse dive, remarked in an interview that 'Wherever we went, the S.P.C.A. Once you were on the horse, there really wasn't much to do but hold on. Īrnette explained Sonora's decision to continue riding after her accident in this way: 'Riding the horse was the most fun you could have and we just loved it so. After her accident she continued to dive horses until 1942. In 1931, Sonora was blinded by retinal detachment, due to hitting the water off balance with her eyes open, while diving her horse, Red Lips, on Atlantic City's Steel Pier, the act's permanent home since 1929.

Sonora's sister Arnette Webster French followed in her footsteps, becoming a horse diver and joining the show in 1928. Al had taken over the show in 1927, after the death of Dr. Sonora fell in love with and eventually married Doc's son, Albert (Al) Floyd Carver, in October 1928. She was a sensation and soon became the lead diving girl for Doc's act as they traveled the country and the first diving girl quit. Her job was to mount a running horse as it reached the top of a forty-foot (sometimes sixty-foot) tower and sail down on its back as it plunged into an 11-foot pool of water directly below. Webster answered an ad placed by William 'Doc' Carver in 1923 for a diving girl and soon earned a place in circus history. Sonora Webster Carver (Febru– September 20, 2003), was an American entertainer, most notable as one of the first female horse divers.

Wild hearts can't be broken