HMT Virginius (the initials are Taylor’s) is an Egyptian Arabian, one of the most valuable horse breeds in the world. And when Verling shakes a plastic bottle full of rocks, the stallion is alerted. It’s show time. He prances and snorts. With head high and tail up, he makes short charges around the ring—and toward the onlookers—wheeling about and rearing up on his hind legs before settling into the smooth gait for which Arabians are famed. He charges up to the fence regularly for an admiring pat. “Virginius is a show-off,” says Taylor. “He loves to be admired.” He was once a National Top Ten at a Pyramid Egyptian Arabian event in Kentucky, and number one in his class at the Virginia State Fair in his first year in the ring. Black Arabians are rare and prized today, but this was not always so, apparently. As the story goes, the Bedouins killed them off. “They were warring horses,” explains Taylor, “and the black against white desert sand would attract attention from invading tribes, and so they were put down.”
According to the Arabian Horse Association, no horse breed in the world has a heritage as deep as the Straight Egyptian Arabian. Its bloodline supposedly traces back to biblical times. First documented in Egypt, the Arabian is the oldest known breed of riding horse and has lived for thousands of years among the desert tribes of the Arabian peninsula, “establishing itself as an animal of great importance ….” Saladin’s Arabians helped to prevent Richard the Lionhearted from conquering Egypt, claims the Arabian Horse Association, and historical figures like Genghis Khan, Alexander the Great and Napoleon are said to have ridden the animal. More recently, Zachary Taylor was painted with his Arabian, and President Ronald Reagan owned a pure gray.
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