A portrait of one of this last year's moms, Elation. She's always been a fairly nice mare, though she makes for a slightly overprotective mother. Something in her has always reminded me a little of Ginger, the chestnut mare in Black Beauty, though I can't quite put my finger on what.
This last week I caught the last chunk of Black Beauty on tv and felt inspired to reread the book (by Anna Sewell). Since childhood I've loved both the book and movie--I think at one point I watched the movie at least twice a week. It's such an amazing book (though I find it interesting that the movie leaves me feeling a little better about humanity than does the book), and after reading it I couldn't help but wonder how much of my relationship to horses was shaped by it. I've always understood and treated horses (and, indeed, other animals) as capable, intelligent, emotional, and innately good-natured creatures. I've always readily accepted that they see the world in a different way than we, as humans, do and have tried to understand if not stand by it.
It also makes me wonder...If Toler were to tell his life's tale, what would he say? What of his childhood? His coming to "my" barn? Of me? At least he'll never have to know the life horse's had back then--the life of a work animal, of a "beast of burden." And then I can't help but picture my beloved moose all harnessed up in front of a little buggy. Haha, what a sight that would be!
