Difference between revisions of "Emmerich Ankner"

Revision as of 00:35, 19 June 2011

Equestrian

By Don Stacey and Dominique Jando

Emmerich Ankner (1885-1954) was born in Vienna in 1885, the son of an official on the staff of the Empress Elizabeth of Austria. As a young man, he served as a cavalry officer for the Austrian Army, and was later trained in the classic art of riding and dressage in the Imperial Riding School in Vienna. One of his fellow pupils there was Karl of Austria, who was to become the last Emperor of Austria and King of Hungary after the assassination of Archduke Franz Ferdinand in Sarajevo in 1914.

From Vienna, Ankner went to Germany and was taught high-schoolA display of equestrian dressage by a rider mounting a horse and leading it into classic moves and steps. (From the French: Haute école) riding by the famous equestrian and high-schoolA display of equestrian dressage by a rider mounting a horse and leading it into classic moves and steps. (From the French: Haute école) rider, George Burckhart Footit. He made his debut in the ring at Circus Busch in Berlin in 1905. He toured with various circuses in Germany and Austria, and later worked with the legendary Circus Sarrasani, with which he toured in South America in 1923/1924. In 1928, Ankner brought a stud of horses from Circus Carl Hagenbeck, in Germany, for Bertram Mills and appeared with them at Olympia for the Bertram Mills Circus 1928/29-season.

Then Ankner went to Ireland for the opening of Harry Carmo’s newly formed Great Carmo’s Circus, to which Mills had sold his horses. In 1933, the Carmo show went deep in debts and Ankner took his horses to the Backpool Tower Circus, via the Agricultural Hall in Islington, London, where he appeared during the 1933/34-winter season. The horses were eventually sold to the Bouglione family in France in 1935, and by 1937, Ankner vas back with Circus Busch in Germany. Emmerich Ankner died in 1954.