The Red Pony - Salinas, CA - Fiberglass Horses on Waymarking.com

The National Steinbeck Center celebrates the works of John Steinbeck who usually wrote about the people in this part of California. This section of the Museum focuses on Steinbeck's novella "The Red Pony" and displays a horse in a stable setting.

Physical Address: 1 Main Street Salinas, CA USA 93901 Web site: [Web Link] Horses Name: Gabilan Background Story: From Wikipedia https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Red_Pony - "The book's action begins when Carl Tiflin gives his son Jody a red pony colt. Overjoyed, Jody quickly agrees to all of the conditions his father places on the gift (to feed the pony, to clean his stall, etc.). Jody is so awed at the pony's magnificence that he decides to name him Gabilan, after the grassy and oak-dotted Gabilan Mountains that border the Salinas Valley ranch. After several weeks of training and getting to know Gabilan, Jody is told by his father that he will be allowed to ride the horse by Thanksgiving. Though the ranch hand Billy Buck assures him there would be no rain, the pony is caught in a downpour and catches what appears to be a cold after being left out to corral. Billy tries to cure the horse of its illness to no avail and finally diagnoses the illness as strangles, placing a steaming wet bag over the pony's muzzle and entrusting Jody to watch the pony. In the night, Jody becomes sleepy in spite of his constant worry and drifts off to sleep, forgetting about the open barn door. By the time he awakens, the pony has wandered out of the barn. When Billy arrives, he deems it necessary to cut a hole in the horse's windpipe so he can breathe. Jody stays by his side, constantly swabbing out the mucus that clogged the windpipe. After falling asleep, Jody dreams of increasingly powerful winds and wakes up to see that the pony is gone again. Following the pony's trail he then notices a cloud of buzzards circling over a nearby spot. Unable to reach the horse in time, he arrives while a buzzard is eating the horse's eye. In his rage, Jody wrestles with the bird and beats it repeatedly, not stopping until he is pulled off by Billy Buck and his father, though the bird had long since died. The story overall deals with ideas regarding the fallibilities of adults and the entrance into manhood, and the inevitability of death for all living things."

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Date Logged Log User Rating   10/10/2014 Metro2 visited it