Horses Cont.

Slab-backed, sweating, all nostrils and steam and teeth like slices of bread, clanking and stamping and champing at the bit, gilded hooves and oil on hot leather, flexing straps and straining buckles and the stirrups, the stirrups, the stirrups and nosebags full of liver and chamfrons stuck with rubies and unblinkered eyes, o lente, lente currite, mossflanked and tangletailed, burrs and fingers in their manes, screaming and screaming and climbing carefully up the stairs.