Good Afternoon bloggers!

 I want to thank Maria Lokken and Tanya Hansen for joining in our discussion this morning, as well as fellow author, Cheryl St. John.  Also a big vote of thanks go to Linda B and Jennifer Y for their comments from yesterday’s blog, as well as Elizabeth Lane — another fellow author.

Well, here I am, getting ready to mail off the revisions for my next book (due out in March 2008), THE LAST WARRIOR.  But before I go, I thought we might discuss the mustang and its importance to Native America.

As you know, before the Spanish arrived with their horses, the Spanish Barb, Native America didn’t have horses.  Instead, the American Indians made use of the dog.  It was the dog that transported their goods from one place to another, sometimes even transporting a baby.  Is it any wonder that some tribes honor the dog to this very day?

As Helen Addison Howard says in her book, AMERICAN FRONTIER TALES,   “(the mustang) completely changed the Indians’ nomadic life-style in hunting and war, in moving camp, in recreation, in trade, raised the owner’s social position, became a status symbol of wealth, and engendered a new standard of well-being.”

Because of its short stature, the mustang was often called a pony.  But that stature was deceiving.  The mustang was an intelligent animal with a stamina that became legend.  It was a mustang who won the 3,000 mile endurance test held in Arabia against the finest Arab horses in the land.  That pony, Hidalgo, was the 800 pound, 8 year old that won that race, even though the race was done was over loose sand, and  in a land where there was very little water.

Did you know that the movie, Hidalgo, was based on a true story?

Well, that’s all for now.  Again, I welcome all your insights into this and any other animal that’s in your life.

Good morning once again, bloggers!

Karen Kay here again.  I want to thank Denna and Stacey Kayne for writing their comments and for sharing their stories with us this morning.  Also I’d like to thank fellow authors Charlene and Linda Broday for sharing their comments with us this morning.

Okay, so the excerise is done — it was weights for me this morning — and as I sit here eating breakfast, I thought we’d talk some more about the hearty mustangs who so captured the heart of the West.

 Of course we owe our thanks for these intelligent animals to the Spanish — the word mustang comes from the Spanish word mesteno, meaning wild.  From Columbus to Hernando Cortez, every Spanish explorer or adventurer brought these animals to the New World. 

It was Hernando Cortez who brought them to us in 1519 –he had only sixteen horses, but of them Bernal Diaz (who was with Cortez) writes: “For after God, we owed the victory to the horses.”

But where did the Spanish get these hardy friends to man?

 Professor Walker D. Wyman writes:  (the Oriental horse) is known to have come into Mesopotamia from Persia about 2500 B.C., to Egypt from there in about 1700 B.C. and thence it spread over North Africa.”

Known in Africia as the Barbs — meaning that they were from the Barbary Coast — these breeds mixed with the Arab breed when the Arabs conquered areas of Africa — this was in about 647 A.D.

It was around 711 A.D. that the Moors — who were descendants of the Moroccans and Moslem Arabs — came to Spain, and for almost 800 years, the Moors held Spain hostage.  Now, when these Moors came to Spain, what were they riding?

You guessed it — the Barb-Arab mixed breed horse.

Okay, enough of ancient history.  In my next post, let’s bring the subject closer to present time and discuss how the horse influenced Native America.

  Hope to hear your comments on this and other things of interest, so please feel free to leave some comments, okay.  To the left, by the way, is the art work for my latest novel, RED HAWK’S WOMAN, a June release of this year.

Isn’t he gorgeous?  And does anyone know the name of this sexy young man?

Till later, then.