tel un alezan

10:17 Dec 13, 2018 

The bit about chestnut horses being used in medieval culture to symbolically indicate that their riders are traitors is interesting. It follows from Judas Iscariot being depicted with red hair, which in turn was associated in Europe with Jews (and Celts). I've never heard of the chestnut coat colour symbolising strength in horses, only a difficult or feisty temperament.

16:32 Dec 8, 2018 

This is more about the ‘reputation’ of chestnut-coloured horses than describing the colour of their coat. After all, all horses, whatever their colour, can faire un bond but the author chose these ones in particular because alezans are associated with strength and energy: it conjures up images of fiery horses and makes the description of the bond even more vivid. I wouldn’t know whether the same association exists in English but mentioning strength and energy is more important here than describing the colour of the horse's coat. L'alezan est perçu comme un symbole de vie, de feu bénéfique et de pouvoir royal - the link is too long to quote here but you can copy the text in your search engine. Mind you, the same and other sources report that in medieval culture, alezans were used to identify traitors in texts, tapestries, etc. (the 'ginger' thing), but that’s irrelevant here. Also: C'est dans les épopées celtiques que cet aspect guerrier du cheval est le plus mis en avant, associé à la robe alezane (https://fr.wikipedia.org/wiki/Symbolique_du_cheval).