The Horse Of Course

“This thread has nothing to do with backpacking, but I thought a lot of you might find it interesting.

The city of Billings, Montana gave local artists a blank canvas (the horses)and asked them to put their creative minds to work. Once complete the horses we're put out to pasture around the city. On September 7 they'll be herded up and auctioned off to fund the Billings Depot Restoration Project. The hyperlinks below will take you to photos of the horses on display. I apologise for NOT being able to do them justice. They truly are magnificant.

The Horse Of Course
The Horse Of Course II
The Horse Of Course III”

“Very cool.

My vote is for "e. pluribus equus"
but "American Women" is pretty cool also.”

“I thought those looked familiar...”

“Jeez Geez, how many horses were there all together? 30, 40?

Nice tourist attraction though. If I remember correctly, a Canadian city had installed live size mooses in their city, to attract tourists also.”

“Stanlee, there are 37. Several actually have seperate scenes on each side of the horse. For instance, Peaceful Easy Feeling (Day) and Peaceful Easy Feeling (evening). Crazy Horse is covered in a quilt done by John Flynn. Another that we though was very creative was "Brand Inspector's Nightmare" If you look you'll see is logos from various corporations. Pinto Keeper is done entirely in pinto beans.

A article in the Billings Gazette can be found here:

Billings Gazette Article”

“Garfum, We tried to pick a fovorite, but with esch one we saw it changed. E. Pluribus Equus is certainly one of our favorites, along with Comanche Rise and Crow Spirit Pony by Kevin Red Star.

Of course my wife, being a quilter, likes Crazy Horse.”

“Orlando had Lizart. They did basically the same thing with lizards”

“Chicago did the samething two years ago but with horses, over 200 of them. It was quite a tourist attraction. Also raised lots of money for charities.”

“er that should be COWs, not horses!”

“Ponies here in NM. It started in 2001 with 120 or so, as a charity fundraising event.

Go Painted Ponies”

“Love the cows and the ponies. How do I find the lizards? Tango help us out here!”

“Geezr you are the man!”

“Kansas City did the same thing with fiberglas cows last summer.”

“cool! we have something like that going on here-- party animals ”

“Ocala FL. did the same thing with horses. It was pretty cool.”

“we have a flower shop in town that has one out front. once a month it gets a new paint job. they usua''l have volunteers paint it in any way they choose. there have been some really cool ones.”

“Where's PETA when all this is going on?”

“TUCSON, Arizona (AP) -- The mysterious slashings of at least 17 horses' throats at a guest ranch last year have been solved, but no one will be charged, officials said.

The culprit: another horse. The weapon: teeth.

Investigators had suspected a person was trying to kill the horses because the jagged wounds were always near the vital jugular vein and happened late at night.

The wounds, which were 1 to 4 inches long and about an inch deep, began appearing last July.

The case was cracked when an employee of the Tanque Verde Guest Ranch finally caught a horse biting another in the throat, Pima County sheriff's officials said Wednesday.

The slashings ceased when the suspected equine was isolated in another corral.”

“Sheesh!! I hope they dont let anybody ride that horse!! I see horses around here biting each other on the rump alot but thats just a game and Ive never seen them injure each other. Too many males competing maybe??”

“The rump bites are a dominence, herd thing. That must be the Jeffrey Dalmer (sp?) breed of horse???

Mine is always coming in from the pasture with a nick hire or a hoofmark there. He bugs the other horses to play until they get ticked off and reprimand. It's a dominance issue as well.”

“Jeffrey Dahmer and LOL”