Tiger-act star is always aware of the danger the big cats pose

By DEBORA SHAULIS
ENTERTAINMENT EDITOR
Las Vegas showman Roy Horn is slowly recovering from injuries he suffered when a 600-pound white tiger attacked him during a show.
Mark Oliver Gebel, the "Master of the Menagerie" with Ringling Bros. and Barnum & amp; Bailey Circus, says he prays for Horn but doesn't dwell on the attack because he doesn't want his confidence to be shaken.
"I'm well aware of the danger I work with every day," Gebel said recently before arriving in Cleveland for shows at Gund Arena. "It's not the safest job, but the respect I have for the animals is incredible. ... I don't go in there every day worrying about it."
Circus patrons don't seem to be overly alarmed, either. "I think the response is about the same" since Horn was injured, Gebel said.
Tigers as pets
Tigers have been big news this fall. Besides the attack on Horn, there's Ming, a tiger that was removed from an apartment in New York's Harlem section and brought to Noah's Lost Ark Sanctuary in Berlin Center.
The keeping of exotic pets as house pets is "absolutely insane," Gebel said. "It's incredible, actually." He wonders how the owner's Harlem neighbors didn't know that there was a tiger in the building.
People don't realize that tigers grow at a tremendous rate during their first year of life, said Gebel, 33, who was born into the circus world. He's the son of longtime Ringling Bros. animal trainer Gunther Gebel-Williams.
Tigers aren't to be taken lightly, either. Gebel recalled being allowed around the circus's elephants when he was 2 years old, but he was a teen-ager before his family allowed him to get close to the tigers. The difference is "natural instinct," Gebel said. To tigers, "A toddler is food, right?"
Alas, Ming doesn't have a future in the circus. "If he was a little younger, yeah," said Gebel, who has been showing tigers since 1996. "I wouldn't try to build a relationship with that individual at that age. You have to start at an early age and build a trust."
His act
Gebel's new act, which opens the second half of The Greatest Show on Earth, features him with 10 Bengal tigers. Gebel wears a microphone, and other microphones are around the ring so the audience can hear everything. Gebel believes there's an educational benefit to this: "You see how I communicate with them -- my body movements and gestures, how I encourage them to move along ... " He does the same with elephants during the first act, he added.
The circus has 11 tigers. Working with them doesn't take up as much of Gebel's day as one might believe. "You have to let them be themselves, relax, sleep," he said. "They get activity and play. We let them be relaxed before a performance."
How much time he spends with each tiger varies. Some are affectionate and some aren't, he noted.
Asked if he's ever had a run-in with a tiger, "No, knock on wood, and I don't plan on it," the married Gebel said. "I have two beautiful kids. I want to spend the rest of my life with them."
shaulis@vindy.com