Horses

Coincidence .. . .  . ?  I had decided to use the word Horse as my topic for today and it also happens to be the birth centenary of Eadweard J. Muybridge, who was born on April 9, 1830.

A famous photographer. Muybridge is especially known for his breakthrough work on animal movement, especially of the Horse and today’s Google Doodle shows the same.

 This brings us to the commonly used term Horsepower. Just to brush up what we learned in school, if you were to lift 33,000 pounds, one foot, over a period of one minute, you would be working at the rate of one horsepower.

 Something else that reminds me of school was the text book “Black Beauty” which gave all the finer aspects of a horse growing up.

When I go for my morning walk at the race course I can see the horses zipping past for their morning training. As they run on sand, you don’t hear the click of their hoofs (at full gallop) but you can hear them snort as they come close to you. Motion in action is what you get when you click them. Here is one which I clicked.

This is a picture of a horse during the Ganapati procession that is held annually in Pune. It was drizzling and that explains the wet look.

In India (especially in north India) the groom is supposed to arrive on a horse back for the wedding, a tradition which they carry out even today, though it may be just symbolic now.

Talking about Indian horses, the Marwari horses from Rajasthan,  are supposed to be the descendents from the splendid war horses that served the ruling families and warriors of feudal India. It is said that they are the best breed in India. They even have a dedicated web site with all the details about the horses.

The horses in Europe looked prim and proper with all those decorative tufts. Tourists prefer to take these rides as they can do the sightseeing with a running commentary. The cobbled roads adds to the effect with the hoofs going clippety clop. Some pics which I clicked last year.