Everything I need to know about people I learned from The Black Stallion.

Argentine gaucho ranch. Photo © Julie R. Neidlinger.

We all have a horse counter-part.

From The Black Stallion series, I learned, as a child, about furlongs and weighted saddles and Alec Ramsey. All things horse racing I loved. And I learned about the different kinds of horses.

There are cold bloods, warm bloods, and hot bloods.

The cold bloods get the job done, steady and faithful, without the flash.

They take up a lot of space; they’re bulky and slow. They plod along in fields, pulling plows and wagons. If they’re lucky, they get to pull a beer wagon and make people feel nostalgic when watching the commercial. These are the horses that pulled weapons of war before the combustion engine, the horses that changed the map and changed history, the horses that were ground up and blown up in the mud and trenches of war.

The hot bloods are all flash and energy and they move quickly and are high-strung.

They pull at the bit and toss their head and battle to own the moment, pivoting and pacing and moving sideways. They race like the wind and move over the ground quickly. Some of these hot bloods need a pony to escort them out to the race track because they are too nervous and antsy and at war with themselves that they need the calming effect of that pony to make it to the gate and stay still long enough to start correctly. When the gate opens, they burst forth and run splendidly in a hot burn and get all the recognition for their performance and the pony gets nothing.

There are people that are like hot bloods and people that are like cold bloods.

The hotbloods talk quickly and loudly. They interrupt, take charge, assert, and own the show.

The coldbloods are slow to talk, pushing their energy down inside to prepare to do the work.

People write books about hot bloods.

People don’t write books about cold bloods.

But while a hot blood is running like the wind, moving from point A to point B as fast as he can, that cold blood is actually moving point A and point B.

I’ve seen people penalized from jobs and opportunities because they weren’t quick to talk, or talk profusely. They worked hard internally, pulling their weight and more, behind the scenes. They were labeled as slow, not confident or dumb.

Have some patience for those who move a bit more slowly. They aren’t just moving themselves, after all, but the whole world.