On the weekend of the Kentucky Derby it seems appropriate to say a few words about the horse and the writer. The one has occupied the other through the ages.

Think of Revelation and the horses of Conquest, Slaughter, Famine and Death.

Think of Caligula and his white stallion, Incinatus.

Shakespeare permanently defined Richard III: He would have swapped his kingdom for a horse.

Think of Rudyard Kipling and the Light Brigade, of Paul Revere and the midnight ride, of Robert E. Lee aboard Traveller, of Robert Frost and his little mare on a snowy night, of Damon Runyon and his horseplaying buddies. What a chronicle unfolds!

The noun “horse” has a pedigree that dates from the Frisians and Saxons. For the record, a horse, lexicographically, is “a solid-hoofed perissodactyl ungulate mammal.” You already knew that.

The Oxford English Dictionary lists seven four-footed forms: Arabian horse, cart horse, draft horse, racehorse, saddle horse, warhorse and wild horse. There is also a “liberty horse” and a “great horse,” but as to these critters the sages are silent.

Please hang around. I have frittered away a whole morning on equine studies. To gymnasts, a horse is a piece of apparatus one vaults over (over which one vaults).

A horse is also a vice or clamp. It is a lottery ticket. It is a unit of energy, as in 100 horsepower. I am reliably informed that “horse” is another name for heroin.

In simile and metaphor the horse has been around forever. A candidate for public office can be a dark horse. It usually is good advice not to change horses in midstream.

Through the ages, philosophers have dwelled upon the horse’s molars. Thus, we are admonished not to look a gift horse in the mouth. On the other hand, if a tip comes from the horse’s mouth, it probably is worth a two-buck investment.

We may say of a gourmand that he eats like a horse. And what do we say to impetuous youth? Hold your horses!

The horse appears rarely to have been verbed. True, someone who engages in horseplay is “just horsing around.” Someone whose posturing is exposed is “unhorsed.”

Some first cousins to the equine species appear in a few figures of speech, e.g., to “bridle” means “to show hostility or resentment by drawing back the head or chin.”

If we are walking, we hoof it. If we’re in a hurry we’re hot to trot. We saddle up for an argument. In retirement we’re put out to pasture.

Combining forms abound. Botanists know a horse daisy, a horse-eye bean, a horse bane, a horseradish, a horsemint and a horse mushroom.

Sailors must tolerate the horse latitudes, i.e., “a belt of calm in each hemisphere between the trade winds and the westerlies.” Anglers know the horse mackerel, defined as “any of several large carangid fishes, especially the scad.”

All of us must pray now and then for a leavening of plain old horse sense. Otherwise we will lock our barn doors after the horses have been stolen.

Changing the subject! A couple of months ago a columnist of my close acquaintance scattered pearls of linguistic eloquence and concluded by saying, “Other alternatives will perhaps come readily to mind.”

Other alternatives?

P. Ramsey of Rochester, N.Y., was unpleased. He wrote: “The word ‘alternative’ is bivalent. This signifies an either/or condition, not a set of choices or solutions numbering two or more. I’m surprised at your faulty usage. Dock yourself one day’s pay!”

Hoity-toity, and dock me not! The noun “alternative” is NOT limited to two choices. Come November, voters in many states will be offered several presidential alternatives. It’s the American way!