Hallandale Beach Florida now has a 110 foot tall statue of a winged horse pummelling a dragon. It’s made of steel, and weighs 715 tons. The price tag is $30 million.
It’s still under construction, but is close to finished the building underneath is supposed to be a theater (even though the Roadside America page claims it’ll be a planetarium).
It’s been built and paid for by Canadian-Austrian businessman Frank Stronach, who also owns the racetrack it sits on. Frank says it’s supposed to represent the battle of Good Against Evil, but I strongly suspect it represents Hey, Come to my Racetrack!
As a fan of Greek Myth (and particularly of this one, as you may know), this caught my eye. Just for the record, Pegasus isn’t the only winged, flying horse in Greek myth (there are also the ones pulling the chariot of Pelops, for instance. And, for some, the horses pulling the chariot of Helios), but he’s the best known. And there ain’t no myth of Pegasus fighting a dragon. Pegasus features in the myth of Perseus and Medusa and Cetus. But, despite both versions of Clash of the Titans (where Cetus is called “Kraken”, I guess because it sounds cooler), there’s nothing about Pegasus fighting the Sea Monster (who is sometimes represented as dragon-like, although more often whale-like – hence the term “cetacean” – and, in d’Aulaire’s Book of Greek Myth, as a meatloaf). In most ancient depictions, Perseus isn’t shown at this point on Pegasus at all, but being carried aloft by his winged sandals. It wouldn’t be proper for Pegasus to kill Cetus, anyway – by the weird geneaology of the creatures of Greek myth, Cetus is Pegasus’ grandmother (yes, Cetus is a girl monster).
The only other monster Pegasus is associated with is the Chimaera. According to myth, Bellerophon rode on Pegasus while peppering the chimaera with darts, then killed the monster by shoving a lump of lead down its throat (which its fiery breath melted, killing it from within), Aside from carrying Bellerophon, Pegasus didn’t have much to do with it. And the Chimaera is described as a lion in front, a snake’s tail in back, and a goat in between. The movie Wrath of the Titans, the sequel to the second Clash of the Titans, shows Perseus fighting the Chimaera, which is made to look a lot more fearsome than in any depiction I’ve seen before. But, even though Perseus is still linked to Pegasus, the flying horse has nothing to do with this fight.
So, no real myth of this fight, but it still looks cool.
This was great. I haven’t cracked my d’Aulaire’s in a long long time, but when I read this, that illustration immediately flashed to mind. When I next view it, I will no doubt think, “Meatloaf!”