Roy Horn suffered an onstage stroke, the story goes, and Mantacore lunged at him in a misguided instinct to help. After the incident, the show — a Vegas mainstay that grossed $45 million a year — shuttered permanently.
15 years on, animal handler Chris Lawrence tells a completely different story - and he was the one who tried to pull the tiger off of Horn.
As is so often the case with "trainers" who perform with animals, Horn grew complacent; focusing on the crowd more than the animal. If you do that, you miss cues that inform you that something's off:
Horn, who led the duo's animal efforts, while Fischbacher headed up the illusions, had long projected a mythos around his own animal handling, describing a nearly supernatural bond cultivated through direct observation, conversation, even meditation. In a book published in 2000 and sold at Mirage gift shops, he boasts that he sustained a litany of serious injuries performing illusions over the previous three decades but never in his personal encounters with his animals. "I don't have any battle scars," he crowed. "They lick me raw."
By Lawrence's account, in the several years before the incident, Horn had spent less and less time in close contact with the cats before shows. What had been a constant routine — hand-feeding meat treats through kennel wire and, crucially, talking to them as he made his rounds — became sporadic. "Many of the handlers thought that Roy was treating the cats more like props than he was respecting them for who they were," Lawrence explains.
Things started going awry almost from the start. Soon after he was brought onstage by Horn, Mantacore wandered far off his mark. While other cats had occasionally deviated from their routines, "Mantacore was automatic during 'The Rapport,'" says Lawrence. "This was uncharted waters." In reaction, Horn asked the tiger over the microphone, "What is wrong?"
Well, had Horn been paying more attention to the tiger and less focused upon vamping for the audience, he wouldn't have had to ask.
At this point, by Lawrence's recollection, Horn made a crucial error — one thus far omitted from the post-tragedy narrative. "What Roy did was, instead of walking Mantacore in a circle, as is usually done, he just used his arm to steer him right back into his body, in a pirouette motion," he says. "Mantacore's face was right in [Horn's] midsection. By Roy not following the correct procedure, it fed into confusion and rebellion."
The rest is pretty well-known; Horn was mauled and dragged backstage. He can barely move, even after extensive surgeries, although he is able to take a few steps on occasion.
This is but one of many reasons why I don't care for people who call themselves "trainers" - as they're more often focused upon showmanship than upon the animal, and periodically with disastrous results.
Why did this story take 15 years to become known? The incident crashed Lawrence, who is still recovering after being diagnosed with PTSD. I can relate; I was diagnosed with PDD some time ago - different syndrome, but with similar symptoms.
