My horse Ginger (4)

After having lost Patches, I then had to look around and find another horse to call my own.  I came across a reddish brown gelding with a white mark on his forehead.  When I screwed up my eyes a bit, it looked as if it could be a crude looking G, and so Ginger came into my life.

He turned out to be the most terrible ride.  When we raced, which we frequently did, all the other horses would run in a straight line, but not Ginger.  He would do a sort of sidewards foxtrot.  Consequently, I never won a race, but would bring up the rear, coming in at an angle.

Although he was such a difficult horse to ride and had me flying over his head when he pulled up short a few times, I persisted with him.  No one thought much of him, so I wasn't in danger of having anyone buying him from under my feet, and that was a big consideration.  Although it was all a bit of a love hate relationship, I probably rode him for the next two or three years.  However, I was soon to have  another rude awakening.

Arriving home from boarding school for yet another holiday, I was unable to find Ginger.  I looked all over in the usual places, but he was nowhere to be found.  In desperation I asked my father if he had seen him, and he went all quiet and confessed that he had sold him.  I went ballistic!  How could he have done such a crazy thing?  Didn't he know that that was my horse?  I demanded that he give me the money he had received for him.  If I didn't have my horse, then I wanted what he had been sold for.  I think it began to dawn on my father what a terrible mistake he had made, because eventually he gave me the fourteen pounds Ginger had been sold for, with which I bought an A-line dress and my first pair of heels. It was a hollow victory though, and never felt right.

I don't think I ever got over the loss of Ginger and can't remember ever having had another horse again.  These two major losses coupled with the thoughtlessness of my father were all too much for me.  I sort of gave up on people after that.