Run for the Roses

Statue of Secretariat, widely considered the greatest racehorse of all time, Belmont Park, Author Jlvsclrk (CC BY-SA 4.0 International)

Few animals on earth are as extraordinary or beautiful as the horse.  Few of mankind’s animal companions have proven as constant or significant.

Horses have been used for transportation, agriculture, hunting, herding, exploration, warfare, entertainment, sport, police work, and most recently therapy [1].  Apart from service, they have provided milk, meat, hide, hair, bone, and pharmaceuticals.

When a human being runs, his rib cage expands and contracts.  When a horse runs, his ribs are locked in position [2].  He must breathe out as his front legs strike the ground.  He can only breathe in while he is up in the air.  The faster he runs, the less time the horse has to breathe.

This arrangement would cause suffocation in a human being.

But the horse’s metabolism is designed to generate energy without oxygen, when needed.  Rather than being painful, the byproducts of such metabolism actually have euphoric properties.  So the horse loves to run.

For Christians, the hand of the Creator is obvious in all this.  The real question is whether we can run our race as faithfully as the horse has run his.

“…let us run with endurance the race that is set before us, looking unto Jesus, the author and finisher of our faith, who for the joy that was set before Him endured the cross, despising the shame, and has sat down at the right hand of the throne of God” (Heb. 12: 1-2).

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[1]  Wikipedia, “Horse”, https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Horse.

[2]  PBS, Nature, Season 37, Episode 8, “Equus – ‘Story of the Horse’/Episode 1:  Origins”, https://www.pbs.org/video/equus-story-of-the-horse-episode-1-origins-bp00yv/.

Originally posted 2/9/20

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