We are enamored, because he is young, he is very bright, he is on a quest. He is a cowboy. What is the romance of the cowboy in American culture? It is the romance the idealist has always elicited. The man of action still thrills — maybe especially because of the age of anxiety we live in. Romantic figures can call up something timeless, something so thrilling we can't avoid it. The horses are an integral part of this romance. They are huge domesticated animals that have accompanied mankind on our adventures and travels for centuries. Almost every culture of the world has prized and used them — with the exception of some island societies, perhaps. They are beautiful creatures, which is why they lend themselves to more pretty romance than camels, for example. Horses are a connection to the most awesome, powerful, and beautiful parts of nature. When a man can train and ride a great horse, he partakes of that power and beauty that so often eludes us. Then nature is not quite so overpowering or frightening. If we can survive the horse gallop, we can do anything.
Whatever the negatives, it is hard to not return to the romance. But there are also the realists, and Rawlins is the main one in the novel, who try to get John Grady, as well as the reader, back to earth. Rawlins had said in Chapter I, "A good lookin horse is like a good lookin woman. . . . They're always more trouble than what they're worth." This homespun philosophy gives the book and John Grady the needed realistic dialogue. But in the end, John Grady risks his life again to bring the horses home to America. They are not just transportation, not just animals. They are John Grady's lifeblood. And much more.
So the cowboy has a special masculine aura, partly the aura all great athletes have, going back to the Greeks, but a more special one because the aura of the horse is inextricably bound up with the cowboy's aura. As many have noted, rider and horse are one being, not two. This masculinity is so strong that the cowboy need not say much at all. The power of the horse communicates for him, with him. The vision of him on his horse is enough. This is not sexuality. It is skill, profound connection to the earth and sky. It is horse, pretty horse. The pretty horses are legend, myth, romance, nature, and spirituality; and John Grady, on his quest, supposedly to find a ranch, or home, throws himself into all of that. This is why one of the meanings for "pretty horses" must be the American Dream.
