Stallion

Back, at long last, with the plastic ponies - though in fact this rearing Satallion (yes, very anatomically correct), and a demure zebra, were new additions to the herd in the car towards the end of last semester, and have spent the last month stabled in the cup container, as I found when I tried to wedge a plastic bottle of some rather synthetic tasting fruit energy drink into the same space. There's something very alive about this - one can't quite say anthropomorphic, though I think it's stronger than the obvious noun, if there is one - equinimorphic? The more one looks at the creature's expression, the more like a camel, or goat, or something not quite Horse, he seems.

There's something perverse about posting an image of this guy - S notwithstanding - the day after a filly, Rachel Alexandra (the first filly to win the Preakness since 1924) won the Eclipse Award for (race) Horse of the Year - beating another girl, Zenyatta. I'm not sure why there should be two such strong fillies in one year (and indeed, others too, who were honored in the overall list of winning horses). But he's a mustang, I suppose, not a racehorse: at the very least, an equine reminder of the West riding along in the car, deliberately set against not so much his female relatives, but against the grey enclosed non-spacious spaces of New Jersey.