Inspired by Mr. Jones' lovely posts of my Arabian stallion and his mention of the gold horse in Turkey, I adapter a horse figure I had composed for my unfinished music video (a video pertaining to my book and screenplay, My Grandfather's Horses,) to create a graphic of a golden dun. This pony is a nearly true gold like the Akhal-Teke breed of horse Mr. Jones was referring to. A similar golden horse appeared in a particular wild and remote area of Baja California. Years after becoming acquainted with the golden horse in Baja and after later hearing for the first time about the Akhal-Teke that Mr. Jones so insightfully made reference to, I later wondered if this golden horse in Baja was a throwback, or whether perhaps it evolved the unusual dilute gold gene independently. Even the well to do department of Agriculture veterinarian from Mexico City began an experimental stud to breed similar native horses for a while. Poor quality cow-hocked, goose-rumped, jug-headed ponies were common in most areas of Baja, but not where the large cattle ranchers looked after the feral horses by gelding poor quality colts. Also, the terrain and type of horse flesh left in certain areas by the Conquistadors obviously played its role in the resulting progeny. The cattle ranchers in one area talked of a beautiful wild golden horse the cowboys had named "golden quince" for its color. Several tried to get me to persuade my father to agree to pay a group of vaqueros (Mexican cowboys) to catch this animal for him, but my father never saw the point. The method of trapping a wild horse was to herd it into a box canyon and then drive it between two trees with the loop a lasso-snare stretched between them. As the wild horse ran forward the lasso pulled tight. The skilled vaqueros then threw additional ropes on it to throw it to the ground and brand it. They then registered the animal with the magistrate of the district together with a description of its color and markings. The horse would be led to its new home and put in a corral to await further handling. Horses that were handled this way often turned into bad actors or their spirit was broken to the point where they became unresponsive. (I had a beautiful chestnut pony that turned into the bad actor type, but he was so strong and so fast that he could start a landslide while climbing a mountain and still outrun it to reach the top!) The horse in my graphic, Aureo, is representative of the golden stallion in Baja that never was captured...