Ginger, The Trick Pony

Ginger, The Trick Pony

My father admired horses. He owned a 65-acre farm in Fairfield County, Connecticut situated in the foothills of the Berkshire Mountains. It was close enough to the metropolitan area of New York City for for city-dwellers to have weekend homes in the area. At one time or another we usually had several horses that we boarded for absent owners of local property. Ginger was one of these horses.

Ginger was really a pony but she was almost the size of a small horse – nine or ten hands. I don’t really remember. She was probably a certain designated breed, but I never knew what breed. Someone told us she had been in the circus, but the tricks she demonstrated to us, didn’t seem of circus quality. Her tricks were more of a kind to play on us. Ginger was her name and it also matched her personality.

Ginger had a cranky disposition and she was easily moved to be downright mean. She was jealous of attention given to any other horse. Riding her was a constant contest in wills. When she understood what you wanted of her, she wanted exactly the opposite. In a group of riders, she insisted on being the leader, yet when she achieved that position, she immediately slowed down to the annoyance of the other horses. If we kept her at the rear of the pack, she would keep trying to bite the rump of the horse in front of her. When she moved alongside another horse, she would put her ears back and reach over to snatch a bite on  its side. She would also bite and kick her handlers. She wasn’t vicious, just mad at the world. I wonder if it was a sexual thing. I don’t know much about mules, jackasses or hinnies, but it seems to me in retrospect, that might have been her problem. Of course, it could be that she was mistreated at some time, and she was out for revenge on the whole human race.

Because I was the youngest and smallest person on the farm, it seemed logical that I ride the smallest horse. But Ginger was way too smart for me. She knew all the horse tricks in the book, and some she made up on her own. I do think she mellowed a little bit for me because I was a child. She did a lot of kicking and biting, but she never hurt me. Her bites were more nips than serious attempts to do me damage, and her kicks at me never connected.

However, her ideas about going for a ride never matched mine. Especially if I was going out alone, which was the usual plan. I would put a lead on her halter and back her reluctant self out of her stall, and put a bridle and saddle on her without too much trouble. But, when I led her out of the barn and attempted to mount, she would sidestep every time I put my foot in the stirrup, over and over. Each time she would turn her head around and I swear she smiled, and she’d shake her head.

Some of the circus tricks she had been taught were shaking her head up and down if you gave her a little poke on one side of her flank, and back and forth if you poked her on her other side. She knew how to count by pawing the ground a certain number of times. I don’t remember if she got the count right. The trick she liked best was to lie down in her tracks if you poked her in the side. That one was useful to her.

We had a long driveway that was lined with maple trees. When I would finally succeed at climbing into the saddle, Ginger would trot off dutifully to the end of the driveway. There she would stop and dig in her heels. So I would kick my heels into her side to get her going. That was her signal and her excuse to lie down. There didn’t seem to be a signal to get her to rise again. I tried getting off and pulling the reins. I tried just sitting in the saddle and out-waiting her. Boy! Was that ever a failure! I almost never succeeded at that trick. She got up when she was downright good and ready. If I did stay waiting in the saddle long enough, she had one more trick for me. She would leap up, gallop back up the driveway and would be sure to scrape my leg on the barn door as she ran in. She was always faster when she was headed back toward the barn than away from it.