Because the Lacey family placed a high value on a good education for their sons, 11 year old Alex was to leave the circus and spend the next years as a pupil in the Cordeaux Highschool in Lincolnshire. Although he got good grades, especially in biology, mathematics and chemistry – the classes he later got his A levels in – and played rugby and basketball enthusiastically, Alexander was always counting the days until the next holidays. “I couldn’t wait to come home to the circus and help with the animals – especially the big cats”, he remembers today.

For Alex, it was clear that he’d work at the circus after his A levels. He started in his father’s circus, where he built up his first act with lions and tigers. In 1997, when he was just 21 years old, he started to travel on his own. His first engagement led him to a circus in Ireland. There, he couldn’t take his eyes away from what was happening in the circus dome – Elaine, the beautiful daughter of the circus’ director, was working there as a trapeze artist. Since then, Elaine has become Alex’s fiancé and made him the proud father of daughter Katharina, born in 2003.

By building up his own act, Alex has greatly profited from his own technical talent, which he'd already displayed in school. He is proud that he didn’t only design his own equipment, but even welded a large part of it himself.

For several years, he toured with his big cats through Europe: his stations included France, Italy, the Netherlands, Spain, and Belgium. In the last few years he's been with the Circus Charles Knie, mostly on tour in Germany.

In 2003, Alexander Lacey won the Silver Clown with his act at the Circus Festival in Monte Carlo. In 2006 he was, together with his brother Martin, invited there again for the “Best of the Best” and in 2010 he won the Chapiteau de Crystal Award in France.

By now, Alexander isn’t only famous as the trainer of big cats, but as a breeder, too. Last year he brought up seven young lions – offspring of his pasha Masai and three of his lady lions – and this year, he’s got tiger babies. Alexander Lacey plans to enhance his act by filling it up with self- bred cats.

To train animals”, so Alex says, “is the most rewarding thing I can imagine. I hope I can continue to do so for many, many years to come. I’m proud that my lions and tigers, the most perfect killing machines nature has developed, are accepting me as one of their own, and allowing me to come close to them on a daily basis.”