The Equinest archives

Horse Image of the Week

Bay pinto Chincoteague pony

Why We Like It

It’s not a super exciting picture, but there is something sweet & tranquil about it. This resting pinto beauty is a Chincoteague pony. The ancestors of these ponies were brought over from Spain during settling of the new world. Their geographical isolation makes them a fairly pure strain of the original Spanish animals. They are left to run wild for most of the year & strictly managed by the local authorities to encourage their success.
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Read Black Beauty Online – Chapter 40. Poor Ginger

Black horse in a green field

Chapter 40. Poor Ginger

One day, while our cab and many others were waiting outside one of the parks where music was playing, a shabby old cab drove up beside ours. The horse was an old worn-out chestnut, with an ill-kept coat, and bones that showed plainly through it, the knees knuckled over, and the fore-legs were very unsteady. I had been eating some hay, and the wind rolled a little lock of it that way, and the poor creature put out her long thin neck and picked it up, and then turned and looked about for more. There was a hopeless look in the dull eye that I could not help noticing, and then, as I was thinking where I had seen that horse before, she looked full at me and said, “Black Beauty, is that you?” Read more

Horse Image of the Week

chestnut horse face very close up

Why We Like It

There is just something really cute about a close up of a horse nose, especially one with a bright lovely white blaze. This is another soft horse nose that we just want to cover with kisses! We also really have a thing for shots that convey the equine personality, which is a lot more refined & humorous than non-horse people will ever understand.
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Read Black Beauty Online – Chapter 39. Speedy Sam

Black horse in a green field

Chapter 39. Speedy Sam

I should say that for a cab-horse I was very well off indeed; my driver was my owner, and it was his interest to treat me well and not overwork me, even had he not been so good a man as he was; but there were a great many horses which belonged to the large cab-owners, who let them out to their drivers for so much money a day. As the horses did not belong to these men the only thing they thought of was how to get their money out of them, first, to pay the master, and then to provide for their own living; and a dreadful time some of these horses had of it. Of course, I understood but little, but it was often talked over on the stand, and the governor, who was a kind-hearted man and fond of horses, would sometimes speak up if one came in very much jaded or ill-used. Read more

Horse Image of the Week

Pinto horse face very close up

Why We Like It

This is just an all around excellent shot. Not just for the extreme close up of the eye, but also for the interesting depth of field that is created as you look down the horse’s body. We think it is a pinto (with a big white spot on the shoulder), or perhaps we simply have no idea what we are actually seeing here. Anyone see a clearer picture than we do?
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Read Black Beauty Online – Chapter 38. Dolly and a Real Gentleman

Black horse in a green field

Chapter 38. Dolly and a Real Gentleman

Winter came in early, with a great deal of cold and wet. There was snow, or sleet, or rain almost every day for weeks, changing only for keen driving winds or sharp frosts. The horses all felt it very much. When it is a dry cold a couple of good thick rugs will keep the warmth in us; but when it is soaking rain they soon get wet through and are no good. Some of the drivers had a waterproof cover to throw over, which was a fine thing; but some of the men were so poor that they could not protect either themselves or their horses, and many of them suffered very much that winter. When we horses had worked half the day we went to our dry stables, and could rest, while they had to sit on their boxes, sometimes staying out as late as one or two o’clock in the morning if they had a party to wait for. Read more

Pigweed – Toxic Plant of the Week

Pigweed

Welcome to this week’s edition of the a-z of plants that don’t like your horse. Today’s plant is a common one, but it is also one that is every bit as ugly as it’s name & toxicity implies. Pigweed dispels the myth that toxic plants must be deadly beauties, they can be downright ugly too!
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Horse Image of the Week

Bay horse looking into the camera

Why We Like It

While we don’t generally like sepia toned horse shots, this one is subtle & on a bay coat it actually works. The animal has a far away look in its eyes & a slight breeze ruffling its forelock. There is a slightly dreamy, old west quality about this image that we really like.
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Read Black Beauty Online – Chapter 37. The Golden Rule

Black horse in a green field

Chapter 37. The Golden Rule

Two or three weeks after this, as we came into the yard rather late in the evening, Polly came running across the road with the lantern (she always brought it to him if it was not very wet).

“It has all come right, Jerry; Mrs. Briggs sent her servant this afternoon to ask you to take her out to-morrow at eleven o’clock. I said, `Yes, I thought so, but we supposed she employed some one else now.'” Read more