Long ago, in the time when Spanish conquistadors were still exploring the New World, there was a ranch on the plains of northern Mexico.  On this ranch lived a milk-white stallion that the vaqueros took turns using.  One night, the stallion, who was called Palomilla because of his color, grew restless.  He kicked at the corral fence and neighed loudly at the moon.  Then he stood still, gazing out at the distant mountains.  Suddenly he reared, backed up, and charged at the fence.  With a huge leap, he sailed up and over the fence to freedom.

The next morning, the vaqueros met at the corrals to choose the horses they would use for the day.  As they neared Palomilla's corral, they stopped and stared.  Palomilla was not at his usual place at the gate, waiting for them.  He wasn't even in the corral.  The stallion was gone!

Quickly the men mounted their chosen steeds.  The unlucky vaquero, however, was forced to stay behind.  Together, the others rode off for the hills.

They searched all day, but never found the stallion.  Finally they had to turn home, empty-handed and tired.  They made many more searches, but could never find him.

Meanwhile, Palomilla was enjoying his freedom.  He roamed the mountains alone, grazing wherever and whenever he pleased.  He galloped among the foothills and cantered up and down the mountain slopes, leaping streams and fallen trees.  The villagers living in the nearby town on the plain believed him to be some sort of spirit, and avoided him if possible.

Then one day a group of foreign men who lived in the land north of Mexico came up the mountain and chased the frightened Palomilla down through the hills and into a waiting horse van.  Palomilla stood trembling as the door slammed shut behind him.  The engine started, and the van drove away.

The foreigners took Palomilla to Old California, where they hitched him to a small cart and forced him to work in a gold mine.  Palomilla stayed in the mine for weeks, and when the men finally let him out, he trotted eagerly up the tunnel to the opening.  The men gasped.  Palomilla was no longer a white horse- his coat was now the color of gold!

The men took Palomilla to their ranch, where he stayed until, one star-filled night, he broke out of the corral, freeing the other horses, and galloped back to his mountains.  When the men came to the corral in the morning, all they found was a single chestnut mare with a colt the same color as Palomilla standing beside her.

And ever since then, the people of the New World called every golden horse a Palomino, in Palomilla's honor.

A Fictional Tale by Megan Bean

*Note: The palomino color is hard to find.  Breeders usually have to cross a bright chestnut horse with a palomino or cremello.  No one knows where the name “palomino” came from, either.  Palomilla is a Spanish word for a milk-white horse or a man dressed all in white.