Pony

A young male pit bull attacked several horses pastured at a northern Harford County farm Wednesday, injuring one so severely that it was put down. Another horse might not survive its injuries and a third has nearly 50 stitches on its face, officials said. Harford County animal control officials ordered the dog destroyed yesterday. "Based on information from witnesses and past history, this dog was considered potentially dangerous and had to be destroyed for the safety of this neighborhood," said Pamela Arney, Harford's animal control officer.

LOUISVILLE, Ky. -- Fair Hill-based trainer Graham Motion had a little more excitement in his morning routine than he would have liked during his first Kentucky Derby week in 10 years. As Motion was bringing Adriano back from his morning gallop, another horse, who had thrown his rider, ran loose and came worrisomely close to Motion and his A.P. Indy colt. The trainer, seeing the loose horse in his peripheral vision, quickly directed his pony and Adriano into the empty shedrow of Hall of Fame trainer D. Wayne Lukas' barn.

At the Day's End Farm Horse Rescue on a breezy spring day, a brown and white pony circled around and around an outdoor pen. The pony was a new arrival, a stray that had been brought to the farm because it didn't seem to have an owner. At Day's End, the rescued horses are named in alphabetical order, starting with A at the beginning of the year. By March, it was time to give this pony a name starting with the letter N. Christine Ericksen, one of about 15 staff members, suggested the name Nemo, since the pony, like Nemo the fish in the movie Finding Nemo, had been separated from home.

The term "horserace" is relentlessly applied to presidential election campaigns, but the current contest actually fits the label. It features neck-and-neckers, come-from-behinders and odds-maker favorites who stumbled out of the gate. With large fields vying for the Republican and Democratic nominations now headed into what may or may not be the final furlongs, this is surely the most compelling White House competition in decades. Alas, like horseracing, this presidential primary contest is likely to be for most Americans a spectator sport.

Is there a place in the world for cute? There is if you don't have to put up with too much of it. The cuteness in question today is embodied in a toy called My Little Pony, which this year celebrates its 25th birthday, having now occupied a full generation's worth of girls' imaginations worldwide, while simultaneously alarming a generation of parents worried about excessive exposure to saccharine. But is artificial sweetener really so dangerous? Today's young women seem to have their heads screwed on straight - which is more than can be said for the Barbies they took up after leaving My Little Pony bereft and unwanted in the back of the closet.

Paul J. Travers remembered the first time he saw the Colts' mascot, Carolyn Clark, and her Welsh pony, Dixie, cantering around the cinder warning track at old Memorial Stadium. "It was 1960. I used to go to Colts games with the Southeast Police Boys' Club. We'd meet on Bank Street carrying our lunches in a brown paper bag and then board a school bus for the trip to the stadium," Travers recalled yesterday. "Once there, we'd take our seats in the far left field bleachers way up high where we spent most of our time looking at Carolyn and the cars in the parking lot. I guess you could say it was an infatuation with an older girl," he said, laughing.

Celebrate fall at the 43rd National Apple Harvest Festival in Arendtsville, Pa., 10 miles northwest of Gettysburg. The festival, created by the Adam's County Fruitgrowers Association, began in 1965 and includes something for everyone: more than 300 arts and crafts vendors, antique and classic cars, puppet shows, and pony and hay rides. Live music will be played on six stages. Festivalgoers can eat an array of foods, including barbecue, rib-eye steak sandwiches, apple butter, kettle corn, apple fritters and sweet potato fries.

Lois Szymanski vividly recalled the day Carollynn Suplee bought her daughters, Shannon and Ashley, a pony from Chincoteague Island. The girls had saved $500, but it wasn't nearly enough to buy one of the wild ponies they coveted. "At first we told her that we couldn't accept the pony," said Szymanski, 50, of Westminster. "But she persisted until we agreed." That was 1995, and the pony, named Sea Feather, started a tradition that Suplee continued until she died in 2003. Szymanski wanted to continue the tradition, so in 2004, she helped start the Feather Fund, which helps buy Chincoteague ponies for children.

Every time something happens with the arabbers of Baltimore - the controversies and contretemps are cyclical - I think: When are we going to get our act together and give the produce ponies, their handlers, their customers and the city's tourism industry what they all deserve? Ten things should happen: 1. City leaders need to announce, boldly and clearly, that they want the produce ponies to thrive and that they are willing to promote them to the world. While the sight of the arabbers might be familiar to longtime Baltimoreans, they have a real wow factor among visitors and newcomers.

Baltimore officials yesterday condemned the stable housing more than 50 ponies the city's a-rabs use to sell produce because of code violations and unsafe conditions that threatened the safety of the animals. City officials will meet with the a-rabs at 1 p.m. today to inform them that the ponies must be moved and to discuss possible short- and long-term solutions. A-rabs are produce vendors who sell their wares along city streets from horse-drawn carts - often announcing their presence with shouts.