Apollo

It was rapture at first sight. Handsome, mesmerizing, radiant. He was all of this and more as he pranced around the paddock. His rump reflected the warm rays of the morning light with the metallic sheen of a newly minted copper penny. Surely, an Olympian; a Greek god with hooves.

"Apollo. That's what I'll call him."

A four-year-old strawberry roan Appaloosa gelding. He was one quarter Arabian with a blaze on his face in the shape of a broad dagger bearing a cross on its hilt.

Green broke and proud cut. That's what the man who sold him to us for $500.00 had said. Those terms were foreign to me, but not for long. Apollo had some lessons to teach me; and, he taught me well, often with very little warning.