The relationship between people and horses is an ancient one. The cave paintings of Lascaux depict horses stampeding across a ghostly landscape.
This Chinese horse, painted by an artist named Han Gan, dates from the Tang Dynasty , 618-907 AD.
Horses were utilitarian -- until the middle of the 19th century, unless you wanted to walk, they were pretty much the only way to get around -- but there was something more. A relationship develops between horse and rider that is difficult to articulate. Even after the invention of steam locomotives and then the automobile, people held onto their horses, long after they were the only ride in town.
As a species, horses are intelligent, sensitive, and courageous. A horse's esteem is not easily earned; you have to work at proving yourself worthy of his trust. When you have it, though, you have it.
My own horse, Black Jack, while not as elegant or even as mobile as the horses depicted above (he is 16, late middle age in equine years, and has a calcified knee that causes him to limp and makes him unable to be ridden) is a complex character. He will only do things if he can see there is a good reason (like grain or an apple slice), and he will exploit any opportunity you are careless enough to provide for mischief. But there is forebearance and rectitude on his part, too. He could easily trample me under foot or break away and head for the hills -- but he doesn't. There seems to be a strict equine code-of-conduct once a horse respects you that is quite humbling.
It is not surprising, then, that horses are frequently the subject of poetry. In modern and contemporary verse, we have James Wright's beautiful and brilliant "A Blessing" and Donald Hall's poignant "Names of Horses." A perhaps lesser-known but lovely horse poem is Richard Wilbur's "The Ride," from his 1988 New and Collected Poems:
The horse beneath me seemed
To know what course to steer
Through the horror of snow I dreamed,
And so I had no fear,
Nor was I chilled to death
By the wind's white shudders, thanks
To the veils of his patient breath
And the mist of sweat from his flanks.
It seemed that all night through,
Within my hand no rein
And nothing in my view
But the pillar of his mane,
I rode with magic ease
At a quick, unstumbling trot
Through shattering vacancies
On into what was not,
Till the weave of the storm grew thin,
With the threading of cedar-smoke,
And the ice-blind pane of an inn
Shimmered, and I awoke.
How shall I now get back
To the inn-yard where he stands,
Burdened with every lack,
And wake the stable-hands
To give him, before I think
That there was no horse at all,
Some hay, some water to drink,
A blanket and a stall?