Talk:List of allusions/@comment-90.213.148.175-20120428182519

Griffon the Brush Off: Some old mythology has horses and griffins/gryphons/pick-your-spellings as mortal enemies that will fight to death if they ever encounter (thus why the "hippogriff" was an example of something that will never happen).

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hippogriff (covered in the "early references" section)

That Gilda was a griffin rather than, say, another pony, may have been a nod to this folklore.