Not Quite One Hundred Horses

Photo I took of Painting in AIC that has a Horse

Horses are fascinating creatures, or at least they are to me, so after a decently long day of classes, at the Art Institute of Chicago, I was happy to see horses. So, I compiled a few pictures of horses and am going to talk about horses for as long as I can.

Middle Row Jumping Horse (piece by Daniel Muller and Angelo Calsamilia, photo by me)

Horse from 6th century Japan

Hidalgo is a 2004 film starring Viggo Mortensen and Omar Sharif, two actors I will grow to love in other roles, Aragorn from Lord of the Rings and Ali from Lawrence of Arabia. It's not the best movie from what I remember, but I did like seeing Viggo Mortensen on screen.

From my memory, the film is about a man named Frank (Mortensen) who was a message courier and translator during Wounded Knee Massacre and is now an alcoholic about it and does rodeos with his mustang, the titular character, Hidalgo. Once again, Mortensen is kinda a horse whisperer, but this time he is challenged to a race across Najd Desert (in Modern Day Saudi Arabia) by Omar Sharif's Sheikh Riyadh, to test the "greatest American horse" against the "greatest Arab horses" in a way it's like if Steel Ball Run was set in the Najd instead of the Whole of America. I do not remember anything else that happened in the film so I'm moving onto Steel Ball Run.

The seventh part of Jojo's Bizarre Adventure just dropped its first anime episode, so if you're looking forward for a new show about sorta magic powers, horses, cowboys, evil presidents, Ritchie Blackmore's Rainbow, and bones, I'd recommend tuning in. Steel Ball Run is similar to Hidalgo because it's about a very long race, a race across the US, coast to coast. Following Johnny Joestar, an ex-jockey as he is pursuing the ability to walk again after an accident left him paralyzed. The manga is also really good in my personal opinion; I also recommend that. BUT there are so many horses, and most of them have names. Due to the nature of Jojo's Bizarre Adventure, most of everything is named after songs or musicians or bands, you get the picture. I personally think that is very fun and cool, shout out horses with names.

Horse from Tang Dynasty, China

My final horse is the Geese song "100 Horses" which is a very fun song that has been stuck in my head all day, but specifically since my History of South Asia professor mentioned the account about Malik Kafur of the Delhi Sultanate, he captured 20,000 horses during his campaign against the Hoysalas and the Pandyas. Now, it is generally accepted that the account is exaggerated because he could not possible have just, taken 20,000 horses, that is way too many horses, that is an outrageous number of horses. Like I can believe many things, like Timothee Chalamet winning an Oscar for Marty Supreme, but 20,000 horses are way too many, where are they putting them?? Not in Delhi that's for sure.

Anyways that story reminded me of Geese's 100 Horses, because that is already a decently large number of horses, so imagine if it was 200 times more, because that's what Malik Kafur had to deal with.

20,000 horses, dancing up to him so freely or something.