The horse no one could ride

Around 344 BC a horse dealer from Thessaly brought a magnificent black stallion to King Philip II of Macedon. The asking price was thirteen talents, an enormous sum. But the horse reared and kicked at every rider who approached, and Philip ordered it taken away.

His son Alexander, about twelve, protested that they were losing a great horse because no one had the skill or nerve to handle him. Philip mocked him, then made a deal: if the boy could ride it, the horse was his. If not, he would pay its price.

Alexander had noticed something the grooms had not. The horse was facing the sun and shying at its own moving shadow. He turned its head into the light, calmed it with his voice, slipped off his cloak and swung onto its back. Plutarch says Philip wept with pride: “My son, seek a kingdom equal to yourself; Macedon is too small for you.”

Bucephalus, meaning “ox-head”, carried Alexander across Persia all the way to India. When the horse died after the Battle of the Hydaspes in 326 BC, Alexander founded a city in his honour, Bucephala. The lesson is a good one: before you fight a problem, look at what it is afraid of.