Starting in 1929 and for decades after, a star attraction at Atlantic City's Steel Pier was an ensemble of "High Diving Horses" who would plummet—headfirst and with a young female rider— forty feet straight down into a tank of water. In 1980, after the act was shut down, Cynthia Branigan (a young woman with a passion for rescuing animals) bought Gamal (the last diving horse in America) at auction. This moving, and rather astounding, memoir tells the story of this unique and inspiring pair, shedding light on the history of the diving horses and celebrating the "lessons in living and loving" that only animals (including a haughty llama named Hot Britches) can teach.