Welcome to Sleep Stories with Steph,
Your go-to podcast that offers you a calm and relaxing transition into a great night's sleep.
It is time to relax and fully let go.
There is nothing you need to be doing now,
And nowhere you need to go.
Close your eyes and feel yourself sink into the support beneath you and let all the worries of the day drift away.
This is your time and your space.
Take a deep breath in through your nose and let it out with a long sigh.
There is nothing you need to be doing now,
And nowhere you need to go.
Happy listening.
Chapter 8 Ginger's Story Continued The next time that Ginger and I were together in the paddock,
She told me about her first place.
After my breaking in,
She said,
I was brought by a dealer to match another chestnut horse.
For some weeks he drove us together,
Then we were sold to a fashionable gentleman and were sent up to London.
I had been driven with a check rein by the dealer and I hated it worse than anything else,
But in this place we were reined far tighter,
The coachman and his master thinking we looked more stylish like that.
We were often driven about in the park and other fashionable places.
You who never had a check rein on don't know what it is,
But I can tell you it's dreadful.
I liked to toss my head about and hold it as high as any horse,
But fancy now yourself if you tossed your head up high and were obliged to hold it there,
And that for hours together not able to move it at all except with the jerk still higher,
Your neck aching till you did not know how to bear it,
Besides that to have two bits instead of one,
And mine was a sharp one,
And it hurt my tongue and my jaw,
And the blood from my tongue coloured the froth that kept flying from my lips as I chafed and fretted at the bits and rein.
It was worse when we had to stand by the hour waiting for our mistress at some grand party or entertainment.
If I fretted or stamped with impatience,
The whip was laid on,
It was enough to drive one mad.
Did not your master take any thought for you,
I asked.
No,
Said she,
He only cared to have a stylish turn out,
As they called it,
I think he knew very little about horses,
He left that to his coachman,
Who told him I had an irritable temper,
That I'd not been well broken into the check rein,
But I'll soon get used to it,
He said,
He was not the man to do it of course,
But when I was in the stable miserable and angry,
Instead of being smoothed and quieted by kindness,
I got only a surly word.
If he'd have been civil I would have tried to bear it,
I was willing to work,
And ready to work hard too,
But to be tormented for nothing but his fancy angered me,
What right has he made to make me suffer like that,
Besides the soreness in my mouth and the pain in my neck,
I didn't know if I'd stopped there long enough it would have spoiled my breathing,
I grew more and more restless and irritable then,
I couldn't help it,
I began to snap and kick when anyone came to harness me,
One day just as they buckled us into the carriage and were straining my head up with that rein,
I began to plunge and kick with all my might,
I soon broke a lot of harness and kicked myself clear,
So that was the end of that place.
After this I was sent to Tattersall to be sold,
Of course I couldn't be warranted free from vice so nothing was said about that,
My handsome appearance and good paces soon brought me to a gentleman,
He bid for me and then I was bought by another dealer,
He tried me in all sorts of ways and with different bids,
He soon found out what I couldn't bear,
At last he drove me quite without a check rein and sold me as a perfectly quiet horse to a gentleman in the country,
He was such a good master and I was getting on very well,
But then his old room left and a new one came,
That man was as hard tempered and hard headed as Samson,
He always spoke in a rough,
Impatient voice and if I didn't move in the stall the moment he wanted me to,
He'd hit me above the cocks with his table broom or the fork,
Everything he did was rough,
I began to hate him,
He wanted to make me afraid of him,
But I was too high mettled for that,
One day when he'd have grated me more than usual,
I'd bit him,
That of course put him in a great rage and after that he never dared to come into my stall again,
Either my heels or my teeth were ready for him of course and he knew it,
I was quite quiet with my master but of course he listened to what this man said and because of that I was sold again,
It just so happened that same dealer from before had heard of me and said he thought he knew another place I'd do well,
It was a pity he said such a fine horse should go to the bad for want of a real good chance,
So the end of it was that I came here not long before you did,
Of course then I'd made up my mind men were my natural enemies and I must defend myself,
It is very different here but who knows how long it will last,
I wish I could think about things as you do but I can't after all I've gone through,
I thought carefully about what Ginger said then I replied I think it would be a real shame if you were to bite or kick John or James,
I don't mean to said Ginger,
Well they're good to me,
I did bite James once pretty sharp but John said try her with kindness and then instead of punishing me as I expected he would,
James came to me with his arm bound up and brought me brand mash and he actually stroked me,
I've never snapped at him since and I won't either,
I was sorry for Ginger but of course I knew very little then and I thought most likely she had made the worst of it,
However as the weeks went on I found she grew much more gentle and cheerful and had lost the watchful defiant look that she used to turn on any strange person who came near her,
One day James said I do believe that mare's getting fond of me,
She quite whinnied after me this morning when I'd been rubbing her forehead,
Aye aye Jim,
John replied tis the Birkwick Bulls,
She'll be as good as back beauty by and by,
Kindness is all the physics she wants poor thing,
Master noticed the change too and one day when he got out of the carriage and came to speak to us as he often did he stroked Ginger's beautiful neck,
Well my pretty one well how do things go with you now he said,
You're a good bit happier than when you came to us first I think,
Ginger put her nose up to him in a friendly trustful way and he rubbed it gently and smoothly,
We shall make a cure of her John he said and I felt very pleased about that,
Yes sir she's wonderfully improved said John laughing,
She's not the same creature as she was,
It's the Birkwick Bulls sir,
Then he laughed out loud,
This was a little joke of John's,
He used to say that a regular course of the Birkwick Horse Bulls would cure almost any vicious horse,
These golden bulls he said were made up of patience and gentleness,
Firmness and petting,
One pound of each to be mixed up with half a pint of common sense and given to the horse once every day.
