In honor of National Day of the Horse on Dec. 13, enjoy some of our favorite quotes celebrating the beauty, power, and grace of the horse:

Horse and handler at Saratoga. (Eclipse Sportswire)

“There is something about the outside of a horse that is good for the inside of a man.”—Winston Churchill

“A horse gallops with his lungs, perseveres with his heart, and wins with his character.” —Federico Tesio

“Horse sense is the thing a horse has which keeps it from betting on people.”—W. C. Fields

“A lovely horse is always an experience. … It is an emotional experience of the kind that is spoiled by words.”— Beryl Markham

“A canter is a cure for every evil.”— Benjamin Disraeli

“There are other things that I could do, but there’s really nothing that I love as much as horse racing.”—Chantal Sutherland

“We have almost forgotten how strange a thing it is that so huge and powerful and intelligent an animal as a horse should allow another, and far more feeble animal, to ride upon its back.”—Peter Gray

A morning ride at Saratoga. (Eclipse Sportswire)

“Courage is being scared to death but saddling up anyway.”—John Wayne

“I discovered that the horse is life itself, a metaphor but also an example of life’s mystery and unpredictability, of life’s generosity and beauty, a worthy object of repeated and ever changing contemplation.”—Jane Smiley

“I can make a General in five minutes but a good horse is hard to replace.”—Abraham Lincoln

“Put your hand on your horse and your heart in your hand.”—Pat Parelli

“A horse is worth more than riches”—Spanish proverb

“The horse is an archetypal symbol which will always find ways to stir up deep and moving ancestral memories in every human being.”—Paul Mellon

Champion Blind Luck gets a bath. (Eclipse Sportswire)

“A pony is a childhood dream. A horse is an adulthood treasure.”—Rebecca Carroll

“Riding a horse is not a gentle hobby, to be picked up and laid down like a game of solitaire. It is a grand passion.”—Ralph Waldo Emerson

“When I bestride him, I soar. I am a hawk: he trots the air; the earth sings when he touches it; the basest horn of his hoof is more musical that the pipe of Hermes.”— William Shakespeare

“A horse is the projection of peoples’ dreams about themselves — strong, powerful, beautiful — and it has the capability of giving us escape from our mundane existence.”—Pam Brown

“... There is no other feeling in the world to compare with it if one loves a great horse. It gives a thrill that nothing else ever can. It cannot be put into words, because words cannot express it.”—Samuel Riddle

“The horse, with beauty unsurpassed, strength immeasurable, and grace unlike any other, still remains humble enough to carry a man upon his back.”—Amber Senti

“It is not enough for a man to know how to ride; he must know how to fall.”—Mexican Proverb

Champion Gulch, who died in January 2016, at Old Friends in 2010. (Eclipse Sportswire)

“Somewhere ... somewhere in time’s own space

There must be some sweet pastured place

Where creeks sing on and tall trees grow

Some paradise where horses go.

For by the love that guides my pen

I know great horses live again.”

—Stanley Harrison