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)

It was a late-November morning in Northern California, and track announcer Matt Dinerman was preparing to head to Golden Gate Fields to call the races, which he has done for the past six years. But that day hit differently, as it was his last in the announcer booth of the San Francisco Bay Area track before heading to Arkansas to assume his new role of race-calling duties at Oaklawn Park, which opens Dec.