Inner-row Jumper - Buddy (Erasmus)
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Carver: Bob Cherot
Painter: Sharon Abbott
Size: 34" chest to rump
Status: finished
Sponsor: available
The first horse to arrive for the Fort Edmonton Park Carousel was Buddy, designed and carved by Bob Cherot, and painted at a workshop given by Bette Largent on the Cherot property on Flathead Lake in the summer of 2000. Sharon Abbott, a local artist and member of the 1920s Midway Committee, painted the Carmel-style horse under Bette's watchful eye. Typical of inner-row horses, Buddy is one of the smallest horses on the Fort Edmonton Carousel, measuring about 34 inches, chest to rump. He has a real horse hair tail.
Although the versatile and eclectic Charles Carmel originally carved in the Coney Island style, by 1913 the Philadelphia Toboggan Company is known to have purchased several of his horses, no doubt contributing an air of gilded flamboyance to their merry-go-rounds.
Every carousel horse is considered to have a soul and therefore must be named. Despite trying many other names such as Polaris and Erasmus, the name Buddy seems to have stuck as the "barn" name for the horse.