Marion E. Altieri - April, 2010.   

This has been one strange week.  Well, a very cool week: Interesting, in that Synchronicity has played a major role in 50% of my email and telephone conversations.

One of these Synchronicities (”meaningful coincidences” in the lingo of the late, great Swiss psychiatrist, Karl Jung)—is that Arabian horses keep coming to me.  In dreams, in emails, in Facebook dialogues.  Arabians are everywhere. Like ghost horses, they silently, stealthily, are pursuing me toward some goal of which I am not-yet aware.

One of the more fun ‘Arabian moments’ I’ve had in the last 24 hours was with a very wise man, our own Paul Rothfuss, Manager of All Play Stable.  We were talking about Spider, our precious little preemie whose guts and grit propelled him from being a 40-pound foal when he hit the ground in February (very early), to his present stature, which you can see in photos that accompany this piece.

Our 'spider' - One day old.

Spider is precious.  Paul reported that his first attempts to stand upon his birth were pitiful.  At least 50 times over many hours the little boy tried and fell, tried and fell.  But he would not give up.  He has a tenacity, a real craving to live, without which he’d not have made it through his first night. 

Spider is growing stronger and more bright-eyed with each passing day.  I love the little boy, but even more than that—I admire his inner strength.  God gave him guts.  This tiny foal could have rolled over and died, but he knew that he had a purpose in Life.  He owed it to his beautiful, nurturing Mommy (Oh, all right—‘dam’) to ‘stand and deliver.’

The 'spider' - three weeks old.

I have decided that I want to legally name him Sabat Hasan—”Beautiful Spider” in Arabic.  Or perhaps Arachnophobia, because I believe that any force that dares come up against this mighty mite had better be fearful to the point of fainting.

I like the second name, not because I think it’s humorous, but because our little boy has a fierce heart—and woe to them who try to dissuade, beat, or otherwise crush his determination.  I love the first name because this boy is clearly a long-legged spider whose roots go back not only to his dam’s and sire’s immediate parents—but because you can see his proud heritage written right on his nose.  Yep.  His nose.

Anyway, the wise Paul—of whom I referred earlier—had said, “…the Spider has a dished face, and that is a very good thing.”

What in God’s Name does that mean?

Those of you who know Thoroughbreds are aware that every single Thoroughbred on the planet, whether male or female, must be able to trace its pedigree back to one of three Foundation Sires.  These three Sires were called the Darley Arabian, the Godolphin Arabian and the Byerly Turk.  (”Darley,” “Godolphin” and “Byerly” were the surnames of the human males who owned them.)

All three sires were Arabian horses, and all three descended from those great Arabian horses who, for thousands of years, accompanied their owners on the journey of Life. 

Anwer Sher - www.aqsher.com

These weren’t any wimpy horses, these Arabians.  These dish-faced horses, who look so ethereal, otherworldly and almost frail—are anything but.  Their conformation, while appearing to be delicate, gives them the ability to take riders on 200-mile endurance rides across contemporary desert sands.  These horses, these Arabians, are tough as nails. 

And they are the very foundation—think ‘I-Beams’—of our Thoroughbreds.  All Thoroughbreds have Arabian guts bred into them.

Anyway, that wise man said to me—just yesterday:  “If you see a Thoroughbred with a dished face, and he looks to be competitive on his form, bet on him!  Run to the windows!  A dished face denotes toughness.  That horse has guts.”

He right.  I saw a Thoroughbred with a dished nose run at Saratoga last year, and he won.  That horse reached back 9,000 years to his ancestors (who saved the lives of Bedouins), looked down that seven-furlong stretch, and said,

“Piece of cake.”

“This is nothin’.”

Many of our modern-day Thoroughbreds have long, straight noses, and I love ‘em.  But if you see a Thoroughbred with a dished nose: she’s not broken.  She’s a horse who is endowed with extraordinary spirit, an inner and physical strength that is beyond anything we can comprehend.  She is heir to nine millennia of defeating the elements.

So it is with our beautiful Spider.  The little man came out into the world too early and with the odds stacked solidly against him.  But he must have seen his own face reflected in his Mother’s eyes as he landed on the Earth, and in that reflection he saw a lovely, delicate dish.

He saw his great (x 26) grandparents providing shelter, speed and companionship to sheikhs and sheikhas.  As he viewed the locomotion and traction of hooves digging into the deep desert sands without stumbling the knowledge of several millennia washed over him.  Wisdom and Encouragement that can only be handed from one generation to the next by the spirit is nestled in his bone and sinew.

The 'Spider' Seven weeks old!

Our Spider is stronger than he looked in his first minutes, for strength is not determined by one’s physical conformation, shape or color.  True strength—the kind that wins wars and horse races—is etched in the heart and revealed in the eyes.  Spider’s eyes are those of a trouper, and his nose—his tiny, beautiful, “dished face” —was a gift from his Great-Grandfathers, some 26 generations back.

Little Spider will continue to grow, and as each cell in his legs comes together to make them straight and strong, he’ll be grateful that one thing in his lovely conformation isn’t straight: his Arabian nose.

For us, it can serve as a constant reminder that we, too, can rise above our present circumstance, and claim the fortitude and pioneering determination of our ancestors.

In the spirit of Darley, Godolphin and Byerly: Salaam, indeed.