Feminist power
The speaker is unabashed about the real reason she likes the mares so much: they are female. Female horses embody many characteristics that, in humans, are traditionally seen as unfeminine: speed, size, strength, cockiness, dangerous power, and the ability to win easily. Therefore, they become a muse for the poet and give the poem its strongly feminist title. The speaker wants to imagine that "this big / dangerous animal is also a part of me," and she imagines her own heart as a horse's, "giant with power." If horses can embody these archetypes, they present to the speaker a new way of being female, an empowered and confident stance. The poem becomes a rallying cry for women to tap into their own great animalistic power and to assume the same sheer confidence that they will win.
