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.