What is Dappled, Ginormous & Sweet as Summer Watermelon?

Why that'd be Elysian. He's dappled grey, 18.2 hands tall, and 2400 pounds--yes, he honestly weighs over a ton, British or American. For those who are curious, he's a registered Percheron whose been shown in single and as a team in Michigan. This is the guy we searched six months to find, and drove 2700 miles roundtrip through a snowstorm last winter to get. He is not only big and showy, but he's very handsomely built and has a sweet temperament.

THE "OMG, HE'S BIG!" FACTOR
If you aren't regularly around tall horses you don't have a frame of reference for what 18.2 hands tall is. It equals 6' 2" tall ... at the shoulders. Horse's height isn't measured to the top of their heads like people, but to their withers (top of their shoulder blades).

Horse height is measured in "hands". A hand equals 4 inches. We get quite a kick our of horse advertisements that measure a horse as "16.5 hands". This basically means take everything else the ad says with a HUGE grain of salt.

So here are a couple of pics of Elysian from last winter so you can see his height in relation to a person,




... and a closeup of his withers, the point at which he is 6' 2" tall--look right in front of the person on him, that's it.








THIS GUY IS REALLY POWERFUL

Elysian's massive size is impressive in so many ways, for instance in his powerhouse, i.e., rear end.





Maybe you'd like a better view of this remarkable mass of muscle:






















He has a very strong back, too:


HE HAS * STARBURST * DAPPLING!


And for pulling, just look at his chest and forearms. This image also shows some of his beautiful starburst dappling.











"UNDERPINNINGS" TO MATCH THE MUSCLE
Underpinnings is a nickname given to legs in the horse world. Anytime you have a horse with a great deal of mass, whether a draft or a Quarter Horse halter horse, if they are carrying a lot of weight for their size, horsemen/women always want to know if they genetically have enough leg bone or "underpinnings" to carry that weight and remain sound. Here is a pic of his back legs--if you know horses, you can see how substantial his bone is.

We wish you could feel his legs, wow-oh-wow, what strong, clean bone and joints! And we do everything we're supposed to, to keep them that way.


WHAT IS IT ABOUT MEN WITH LONG RINGLETTED HAIR???
And finally, his curls. Yep, his leg feathering curls into ringlets. We keep the fronts of his legs clipped so he looks elegant and polished for special events, but we can't bring ourselves to clip the hair that grows on the backs of his legs because it curls into ringlets!




So, to sum up, Elysian is HUGE, has starburst dappling, an almost white mane and tail to go with his pewter grey color, and has ringlets in his feathers. Yum, yum, he's a pretty boy, even when he's unbathed and at play.