Sunday, March 30, 2008

Un caballo

We stopped for breakfast at our favorite Mexican restaurant this morning. The owner is always very hospitable, and today he went so far as to show us a stack of pictures from his family's ranch in Jalisco. I was surprised to see that his part of Jalisco is not too different from our part of California: grass-gold hills, pines, cows, oak trees (the oaks are a variety of live oak, much more spindly than those we have here, they looked a bit more like our blue oaks). The picture which caught my attention the most, however, was of a parade in Frank's town. It was a pleasant enough shot of maybe half a dozen horses and ponies being ridden down the street. The horse in the foreground was something to make you stare, though. I don't know all the technical things a horseman would expect in a good animal, but from a literary point of view, well, this one looked like it could have stepped out of the grandest legend man could devise. It was a trimly-built thing, without the gawkyness of a thoroughbred, but somewhat leaner for its size than an Arabian. It did have a slight suggestion of Arabian about the neck but overall (to prop my lack of horse-savvy on a literary crutch) whereas an Arabian always makes me think of breakers of surf or billows of sand, a mezmerizing flow of movement, this horse was sharp, keen, like a ray of light. The impression of light was only heightened by the sheen of its hide. The first impression was of silver; it was only a second glance that showed it was a light like the sun on dark water. I stared a while, shuffled through a few other pictures, then returned to stare again. Finally I had to call Frank over and get him to identify the breed for me. It was something I had never heard of before, an Azteca , a cross between an Andalusian and a Quarter Horse. Take a look at the "Gallery" in the link; though it takes a good deal to match the horse in Frank's picture, there are some beautiful animals here.

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