Judaism Exodus 32

[Channalee]

I always wondered why a calf ? Why not a horse, sheep, or person.

I wonder whether the Egyptian worship of cattle might have had something to do with that choice of a calf?  I have Richard Friedman's book The Exodus, but couldn't find a reason in there regarding the choice of a calf. 
 
I was excited this morning to discover that a Kindle edition of Richard Friedman's book Who Wrote the Bible is finally being released on January 15th, and I've already put in my pre-order.  I really love books on Kindle, because it's so much easier to electronically search on a specific word within the book, then it is to use the hard copy's index.  Plus, not everything is indexed in the hard copy.