The Queen of the Thoroughbreds

That's what I call her...The Queen of the Thoroughbreds, as I scratch her on the wither. No one else calls her "Queen" nor is she recognized anywhere as "Queen". In fact, for someone else, they may look at her and think she really isn't all that special. Believe me, she is. I know differently, as I have seen a side of her which is positively regal.

"If I am a princess in rags and tatters, I can be a princess inside. It would be easy to be a princess if I were dressed in cloth of gold, but it is a great deal more of a triumph to be one all the time when no one knows it." —Frances Hodgson Burnett,  A Little Princess

It's our LITTLE secret...her majesty's and mine.

And, I think she likes it too. A daughter of the Thoroughbred stallion, Rock and Roll, she earned approximately $100,000 in her racing career. She is a huge mare, towering over 16.2 hands, powerfully built, with a big body, including a very deep heart girth. She is

gie-NORMOUS. 

I am humbled, when I stand next to her, as used as I am  to a much smaller-sized horse, like my Rosie and Mimi and all of their 14-point-something exotic, desert beauty. It's as if I went to the "McDonald's of horses" and asked them to supersize one of my Arab mares. Yet, for all of her power, she is an elegant horse, possessing all of the characteristics for which this breed is so revered. Nothing can be more beautiful than seeing Rocky in motion, stretching her body out, nose-to-tail,  in a full racehorse run. Then, she really takes my breath away and I shout,

"GO QUEEN GO!"

My mind wanders back to the early 1970's, when the great Secretariat created history on the racetrack and well, here I am, standing in the shadow of his immense, royally-bred great-great-granddaughter.

EnJoy,
Ralph