He's a Portuguese stallion of the Lusitano breed with illustrious bullfighting bloodlines.
The owner's late so I meet him at the stable.
We stare at each other. He's beautiful. All is quiet bar the cheers from the showjumping arena. In some ways, we're quite similar. We've both got brown eyes. We're both mammals.
But we're so very different.
Here's me, top of the food chain; an omnivore to his herbivore; biped to his quadruped. Our eyes lock - his on either side of the head to scope for danger, hence by nature he's prey. Mine are close together, front facing to better judge distance, hence I'm predatory.
As I started kidding myself that I have the ascendancy, someone unlocks his stable door.
Six hundred kilograms of brawn emerges. He stands to my front with four steel-capped blunt weapons. He's a unit. His ancestors corralled bulls in the fighting rings of Portugal, many eviscerated by the horned quarry, ala Hemingway's Death in the Afternoon.
It's a romantic, fierce lineage that doesn't do anything for my nerves. I'd rather pat a grizzly.
An apple offers protection: a bargaining chip, a peace offering.
The heaving alpha crushes it without any thanks, wipes his gooey muzzle on my sleeve, then tries to bite me.
Just when I thought I couldn't get any more pathetic, it dawned that this top performing dressage exponent has a superior net worth; his price tag of about $200,000 being considerably more than this writer's life insurance policy.
What a loser.
Earlier in the week I'd watched an equine trainer explain that horses use their bodies and expressions to "talk".
Using these indicators, I could see he was sniggering - beauty laughing at the beast.