1949: KING OF THE WIND: THE STORY OF THE GODOLPHIN ARABIAN by Marguerite Henry with illustrations by Wesley Dennis
The morning fog had lifted, giving way to a clear day.
When my wife was a grad student in Maryland, she spent a weekend in the touristy beach town of Chincoteague. Something she saw there still cracks me up to this day: she and her friends stayed at a Days Inn with a two-sided letterboard sign out front. On one side, someone had put up the letters to spell "WE'RE SO EXCITED FOR SPRING, WE WET OUR PLANTS!" Wetting our plants. What a goofy and silly joke. Which brings us to the other side of the sign.
I really can't imagine what conversations had been going on among the hotel staff over the past week, that led to some sort of messaging compromise where one staffer got to put up their springtime pun and the other staffer got to put up a blunt and unforgiving moral judgment. Because on the other side of the sign, the sign that said "WE'RE SO EXCITED FOR SPRING, WE WET OUR PLANTS!" someone had put up, with no additional explanation, "SILENCE IN THE FACE OF EVIL IS EVIL."
1949 medalist King Of The Wind isn't even the most famous work of Historical Horse Literature by Marguerite Henry; that would be Misty Of Chincoteague, set in that same Maryland/Virginia region my wife visited where, to this day, the feral ponies, descendants of horses who swam to safety from a sinking Spanish galleon, make an annual swim across the Assateague Channel. My understanding is that this event, which draws in tourists every year, is kind of a bummer to watch today as inevitably, several horses end up drowning in front of everyone.
Misty was a real Chincoteague pony that Marguerite Henry owned, and Henry eventually wrote an entire series of books about her; in Henry's novels, Misty is one of the feral ponies, although she was obviously domesticated in real life1. The Misty Of Chincoteague novel was a finalist for the 1948 Newbery medal, losing to the still-baffling The Twenty-One Balloons, and, as you can see in the photo below, bronze statues of Misty (center, horse) stand in both Chincoteague and Lexington, Kentucky. The movie adaptation of the novel, Misty, came out in 1961. Misty's hoofprints are in the cement in front of the local movie theater in Chincoteague. She remains, to this day, one of the most famous horses in children's literature. Your mom absolutely had a copy of Misty Of Chincoteague growing up.
Misty was Henry's second novel to make it to Newbery finalist status; the first, Justin Morgan Had A Horse2, had been nominated a year prior and was also about a horse who actually existed. So, in 1948, for the third year in a row, Marguerite Henry partnered with Wesley Dennis, her frequent illustrator, to put together yet another work of Historical Horse Literature. And on that try, she won the medal, serving as an inspiration and model of perseverance to all aspiring Historical Horse Literature authors, everywhere.
King Of The Wind is about a different, yet also real, horse. Godolphin Arabian (center, horse) was a real horse, born in Yemen and imported to Europe, that went on to sire one of the most important bloodlines in thoroughbred racing. Legendary racehorses Seabiscuit, War Admiral, and Man o' War, among others, could trace their lineage back to Godolphin Arabian; Henry's novel begins with an anecdote about Man o' War's final race before jumping backwards in time to the origin story of Godolphin Arabian and the (fictionalized) mute Moroccan boy sent by the Sultan to accompany the horse on his journey to Europe.
Historical Horse Literature is not a genre of book I'd really seek out for pleasure reading, nor is "depictions of Muslim people written in the 1940s by a white lady from Maryland". So for the most part, I thought King Of The Wind was boring. But what makes the book weird is Godolphin Arabian's claim to fame: this is a horse that never raced himself, but is famous for siring other famous racehorses. Which means, to be blunt, this horse is most famous for having horse sex with a lady horse. Which would be crude of me to bring up, except it's the climactic scene (ayooo) of Henry's novel.
The scene, which is based on a true story, depicts the worn-down horse named Sham who would eventually become Godolphin Arabian, sheltering at the Gog Magog stables in England. He was being used as a workhorse and a "teaser", which is basically the horse term for "horse fluffer", the horse who judges the lady horse's receptiveness to a stud horse (Henry does not describe the mechanics of the teasing process in detail). When his owner brings in a new lady horse to mate with his prize stallion Hobgoblin, the Arabian horse horse-surprises everyone by breaking out of his pen to horse-fight, and horse-defeat, Hobgoblin, and immediately horse-moves to horse-mount the lady-horse. Because of that fortuitous horse-sex, and because the horse-offspring that resulted happened to horse-run really fast, Godolphin Arabian's place in horse-history was secure. I suppose Henry handles the “these two horses are clearly about to have horse sex with each other” scene relatively tastefully:
“A ringing cry of victory burst from Sham. With a rush he sought Lady Roxana [the lady horse]. He leaped about her, prancing lightly as if his legs were set on springs. He arched his magnificent neck. He plumed his tail. His eyes were bold, his body wet and shining. Sham, the fleet of foot, the pride of the Sultan’s stables, was on parade before the beautiful Roxana. Suddenly they were together, touching each other with their noses, talking in excited little nickers. Then, manes and tails in flowing motion, they streaked to the far end of the paddock.”
In conclusion, this is a heartwarming tale to read to your children about how Horniness can save your life and career, after which they can start asking you all sorts of awkward questions, and you can finally conclude by saying “the important thing is that they made him do this a bunch of times so they could get some fast horses that made British people a lot of money”. Like I said, Historical Horse Literature is not my favorite genre. And sadly, though Henry was very prolific, she never had the chance to write a novel about my favorite historical horse of all time.
Incitatus (center, horse) is the greatest historical horse of all time. He was the horse of the first-century Roman emperor Caligula. Many of the emperors of ancient Rome's Caesar era were generally pretty evil and power-hungry people, but Caligula's name became synonymous with an additional level of depravity among many historians, most of whom thought he was insane, and many of whom attributed his alleged insanity to conditions like epilepsy or hyperthyroidism. Caligula surrounded himself with grotesque opulence, rolling around in pools of gold coins and drinking priceless pearls dissolved in vinegar. He delighted in gruesome torture of his enemies, and defined "enemies" as "anyone who ever caused me any sort of slight or said anything mildly critical of me". And he was a sex freak with an insatiable appetite who bedded several of his family members; Malcolm McDowell portrayed him as a sex freak in a movie once.
It's hard to know for sure how many of the stories about Caligula were apocryphal; most of the historians from that time period really hated the guy and could have exaggerated some of the more lurid stories about him. BUT, these historians all agree on one thing: Caligula was well known for his collegial and professional relationship with Incitatus, who remained one of Caligula's most trusted friends and advisors throughout his reign, was a staple of Caligula's opulent parties, and at one time was being seriously considered for a term as Consul, one of the leaders of the Roman Senate. While I’m glad that a man so broken could build a meaningful relationship on mutual trust and respect, it bears repeating that Incitatus was a horse (of course of course). As Suetonius wrote in his history The Twelve Caesars:
"The day before the Circensian games, [Caligula] used to send his soldiers to enjoin silence in the neighbourhood, that the repose of his horse Incitatus might not be disturbed. For this favourite animal, besides a marble stable, an ivory manger, purple housings, and a jewelled frontlet, he appointed a house, with a retinue of slaves, and fine furniture, for the reception of such as were invited in the horse's name to sup with him. It is even said that he intended to make him consul."
I need this work of Historical Horse Literature to be written. I need to know the orgies that Incitatus witnessed, the horse-support he gave his friend as his mental health deteriorated, the opulence of his stable, the rumblings he heard from the plebians about whether their emperor was okay or not, his eventually dashed hopes of becoming the first ever Horse-Senator.
And I think this story has relevance for today’s era as well. Our country has, pretty recently, been led by a Caligula-like figure who, in Suetonius’ words, baffled the masses repeatedly with “the sudden change of his conduct, the astonishing mixture of imbecility and presumption, of moral turpitude and frantic extravagance”. But while I like making jokes about Donald Trump, it’s not like the guy ever considered forging a political alliance with a horse.
Except for the one time that one of his advisors encouraged him to do exactly that. See, in 2018, after the Eagles won the Super Bowl, they declined a traditional invitation to the White House and reception by Trump. This was a year and a half into Trump’s presidency, by this point Trump clearly thought part of his job included yelling at Colin Kaepernick and denouncing protests against racial injustice, so a large group of Eagles players - ESPN said that this included most if not every single Black player on the team - declined to attend. Trump, employing his legendary skills at twelve-dimensional political chess, threw a hissy fit on social media and insisted that the team didn’t turn him down, he actually un-invited them because they “disagreed with their President because he insists that they proudly stand for the National Anthem, hand on heart, in honor of the great men and women of our military and the people of our country” and that he was going to counter-program an even better “Celebration of America…one that will honor our great country, pay tribute to the heroes who fight to protect it, and loudly and proudly play the National Anthem.”
It was around the time of these announcements that former Milwaukee County Sheriff, former nominee to the Department of Homeland Security that was very quickly abandoned, and loud Trump apologist David Clarke urged the president on Twitter to invite recent Triple Crown winner Justify to the White House in the Eagles’ stead, to celebrate his own impressive victories. As you can see in the tweet below, Clarke proudly proclaimed that Justify (center, horse) “is a WINNER like Trump who could care less about leftist identity politics”. Clarke was likely correct in his assessment of the importance that Justify placed on leftism, but that’s probably because, again, Justify is a horse (of course of course).
Tragically, this did not happen. Donald Trump did not stand on the White House lawn with Justify, tell him that he was meeting with the greatest president in history, and then turn to the press corps and say “see? Two stomps means he agrees.” Had that happened, I would have needed an additional work of Historical Horse Literature on that incident alone, and instead I am left to imagine Alternate Historical Horse Fanfic.
As the saying goes, everything old is horse again, and there is nothing new under the horse. We need horse stories and horse literature to horse-guide us through the horse crises of every horse era, from the Incitatus horse era to the Godolphin horse era to the Misty horse era through today’s Justify horse era. Our horse salvation lies in the horse stories we horse-tell our horse-children. The horse is horser than you horse, and horse not alone in horse. Silence in the face of horse is horse.
Newburied is a series by Tony Ginocchio on the history of the Newbery Medal and a whole bunch of other stuff related to it. You can subscribe via Substack to get future installments sent to your inbox directly. The next installment will cover the 1984 medalist, Dear Mr. Henshaw by Beverly Cleary.
"She" referring to Misty, not Henry.
Which I have not read, but I assume the subtitle was "E-I-E-I-O".