Thursday, July 18, 2013

Heavy Horses


Ever since I was a horse-crazy girl, I loved the Heavy Horse breeds.  They're the baby rhinos of the horse world (except calmer). 
You mostly see them pulling things, and I didn't know people rode them, but recently I saw this, which I thought was really beautiful:

Then I also came across this statue, "The Heavy Horse", by Scottish sculptor Andy Scott. The breed is Clydesdale, originally bred in Scotland.
From Scott's site: the horse is located "beside the M8 motorway between Glasgow and Edinburgh, it stands 4.5 metres tall at the head and is made of galvanised steel round bars."

And then, this isn't heavy horse, but a horse cut into the turf of a chalk hillside: "The Vale of the White Horse" (c. 1939), another watercolor from Eric Ravilious. 
According to the Tate, "This appears to be the White Horse on White Horse Hill, Uffington, Berkshire." 

More on the Uffington Horse from the wonderful graphic series  "Archaeological Oddities" found on the blog Prehistories: Adventures in Time and Space:

5 comments:

Krista said...

And Heavy Horses is also one of my favorite Jethro Tull albums. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Heavy_Horses

Krista said...

See in particular the lyrics to One Brown Mouse, if you're not already familiar with them.

Fresca said...

I have never listened to this--will do (and get back to you).
Thanks!

bink said...

Love seeing the big horses in all their forms! they are my favorite horses to see at the state fair.

Fresca said...

Let's go to the State Fair this year and see them, bink!