“Burning Down the Horse!”

by Brian McKim & Traci Skene on March 11th, 2008

We have been going through our archives, sorting the various papers, documents, boxes of VHS tapes and artifacts (a particularly difficult task when we hit a vein of material from the mid- to late-90s– not good times!) and we came across the video below.

It’s a 4-minute clip of Australian daredevil Vincent Silvestro who stood on the frame of his harness racing sulky, held the reins in his teeth and set off fireworks while being pulled at 30 miles an hour by his trusty horse, Hand Me Silver.

We were part of the team that brought Silvestro to America for several performances in 1997– some time after our radio gig in Philly had exploded and just before we plunged back into comedy. We were in charge of publicity and also served as the act’s advance team. We eventually left the operation when full-time standup beckoned once again.