Black and grey realism tattoo of a galloping horse with a soft shaded mane, sitting on the upper back near the shoulder blade.

Running horse on upper back

Realism · Back · Black and grey · Photo

A black and grey tattoo of a horse in mid-stride, facing the viewer with its head raised and mane flowing. The linework is soft and the body is built up with smudged grey shading, with darker tones along the legs, tail and mane. The horse fills most of the frame against reddened skin, with the tail sweeping down to the left.

Realism Back Horse Mane Tail

Find an artist for this

Take it to an artist as a reference. A good artist will make it yours rather than copy someone else's tattoo.

A story inspired by this tattoo · fiction

You are up before the gulls, leading Marrow down the slipway at Caddon Cove while the tide is still a grey sheet over the stones. She hates the weed and she hates the cold, so she throws her head high and flings her mane at the sky, and you let her, because the carter's boy has already told you the harbourmaster wants the hauling horses off the quay by Michaelmas.

Keep reading

The work is simple and hard. Each morning she wades out to the lighter moored at the breakwater, takes the rope from the men on board, and leans into the harness until the timbers groan and the barge lifts off the mud. You learn her rhythm: three steps through the shallows, then one lunge where the bottom drops away. Her shoulder darkens with sweat until it looks like wet slate. Nobody in Caddon thinks of her as anything but the one that gets the coal in.

Then the storm comes in from the west in October, and the lighter tears its moorings with two men still aboard. You are the one who wades in, rope round your waist, shouting her name over the spray. Marrow comes at a run across the white water, mane streaming, eyes rimmed with fear, and she does not stop until the line is taut and the men are hauled up onto the stones.

Afterwards the harbourmaster stands you a pint and says the mare can stay on the quay as long as she likes. You don't tell him she never wanted a stall. You only know that when the wind drops, she still lifts her head at the sound of the surf, as if the sea owes her something and she means to collect it. Some mornings you swear she is already running.