John R. Killacky: Working with my pony

Editor’s note: This commentary is by John R. Killacky, executive director of the Flynn Center for the Performing Arts in Burlington. It first aired on Vermont Public Radio.
I unhitch my Shetland and put her outside in a corral to cool down. As she grazes, I see in her the ancestral Mongolian ponies: compact muscularity, shaggy pelt, round belly, strong jaw, and deep-set eyes — plus her scrappy resiliency.
For 6,000 years, horses adapted as a species. Once domesticated, they were esse