'Glue Boy,' the most popular pony on parade, donated to Arlington Hts.

Glue Boy, a popular colt from the 2000 Arlington Heights Ponies on Parade, will continue to be stabled in the village.

The Fiberglas creation of artist Carlo Beninati has been donated to the village and stands in a first floor hallway at Village Hall, where Mayor Arlene Mulder sees him as an anchor in a budding art gallery.

Cheri and Joel Meyer made the horse the winningest on the block in 2000 when they bid $4,200 for him.

The Ponies on Parade auction earned $69,000 for charity - 42 ponies were displayed in the village for much of the summer to celebrate the redeveloped downtown and racing at Arlington Park, and then auctioned.

The Meyers are moving to downtown Chicago after about 38 years in the village. They believe Glue Boy, branded twice with the name of the community, should stay in Arlington Heights, said Cheri Meyer.

Beninati had great ideas for painting horsy spoofs on his artistic colt, who wears a jaunty beret and holds a brush in its mouth. Famous paintings given an equine touch include Gainsborough's "Blue Boy" that inspired the whole thing. And Grant Wood's farmer from American Gothic holds the horse's tail rather than his famous pitchfork. What would an artist be without a nude? Glue Boy's is a horse lying on her back.

But Beninati left the two largest spaces on the sides of the horse blank, thinking the winning bidder would select a painting.

The Meyers bought Glue Boy for their daughter. Allyson, also an artist, who it turns out did not have room for him. While Cheri wanted her favorite painting, Georges Seurat's A Sunday on La Grande Jatte, memorialized, Allyson opted for Michelangelo's ceiling in the Sistine Chapel.

The artist provided both-with a horse all but unnoticeable among the Sunday relaxation and the Creator reaching out to a human hand with a horse's head.

Meanwhile Mayor Arlene Mulder and the special events commission are cooking up an idea for a sequel to the ponies to celebrate the village's 125th anniversary in 2012.

In the early discussion stage commissioners have thrown out ideas for benches, chairs and artwork made from recyclables.