Filth!

Filth.

Wallowing in filth.

Wallowing in filth till its foul glutinous slime encrusts every inch of the wallower.

Filth.

In other words, it's mud season, and the horses are making the most of it.

Ben isn't quite so bad as Commander, but only because he's still in a winter blanket, so he has to make do with layering the muck onto his periphery.



Still, he does his best to get down and dirty. It takes some serious wallowing to get his inner ear hair all crusty with dried mud, after all.



But the ear hair isn't Ben's proudest achievement in muckification. Oh, no. No, I'd say it's the gigantic globs of mud crusted in his coat and tangled in his mane that truly impress (or horrify, depending on whether one had any foolish hope of grooming him). Like this:



You've got to admit, that's some serious filth there, eh? And yet, if you holler and screech about what an unholy mess he is, and how the devil can I ever get you clean, he looks back at you with such uncomprehending innocence:



That string of mire beads in his forelock is a nice touch, wouldn't you say?



And then there's Commander. Commander, the hardy little Morgan whose thick coat needs no blanketing.

Whose long, thick, fuzzy coat is one hideous mass of dried, semi-dried, and still glutinous MUD.



True, he hasn't daubed and smeared his head as thoroughly as Ben, but then, I've never seen another horse as impassioned as Ben is about grinding his head into the dirt whenever he rolls.



Whew, that near side of Commander is truly gross and disgusting, isn't it? Perhaps his off side might be....



Um, no. No, it's just as bad, with an extra heaping serving of muck right where the saddle would sit if one could excavate far enough down to find his back.



So, I'd say Ben gets the concentrated filth prize, but Commander wins the overall muckification honors.