[00:00.44]Chapter 12.
[00:02.79]Poor Ginger.
[00:07.65]Winter came early, and it was bitterly cold with lots of snow and sleet.
[00:12.60]The streets were slippery, and we horses had a hard time.
[00:17.74]Pulling a cab in the frost or snow is very difficult, as there is no grip on the road.
[00:24.53]We were scared of falling, and we also hated standing around in the wet for a fair.
[00:33.85]One day, I was waiting outside the park when a shabby old cart drove up beside mine.
[00:41.47]The horse pulling it was an old, worn out chestnut, with a badly kept coat, and bones that showed through.
[00:50.48]I was eating hay, and the wind blew a wisp towards the horse.
[00:56.88]She reached out her thin neck, ate it hungrily, then looked around for more.
[01:05.62]She was a sad sight, and I felt sorry for her.
[01:09.75]She reminded me of someone, and I was wondering who when the horse suddenly cried out.
[01:17.58]Black beauty?
[01:21.39]Are you black beauty?
[01:26.55]Ginger, I gasped.
[01:29.92]I couldn't believe my eyes.
[01:34.98]Surely this thin, worn out horse was not my beautiful friend Ginger.
[01:43.21]Her once arched neck was straight.
[01:47.92]Her glossy coat had turned lank and dull.
[01:52.87]Her slender legs were swollen and bruised.
[01:59.20]Worse still was Ginger's face.
[02:03.82]Once it had been pretty, now it was sad, and full of pain.
[02:13.99]Slowly, between lots of coughing, Ginger told me her sorry story.
[02:26.36]After a year of being left to graze at Earl's Hall, I was fit enough to be sold.
[02:33.61]At first I was fine, but my new owner galloped me too hard, and my old injury came back.
[02:43.32]I was rested, then sold again.
[02:49.93]This happened many times until I was bought by a man who hires out horses and cabs to cab drivers.
[03:00.38]This man was furious when he found out how unfit I was.
[03:06.92]He said the only way to make his money back on me was to work me to death.
[03:13.05]He does, too.
[03:16.74]Seven days a week I work, and my driver whips me badly.
[03:23.78]I wish I were dead, black beauty.
[03:28.72]How I wish it.
[03:31.90]I wish to drop down dead and end my pain.
[03:39.88]Ginger, I cried, touching her with my nose.
[03:44.53]Please don't say that.
[03:50.96]Black beauty, said Ginger quietly.
[03:57.04]You are my best friend ever.
[04:06.43]Ginger's driver came then.
[04:08.98]He tugged her roughly on her mouth and drove her away.
[04:16.62]Heartbroken, I stared after her.
[04:23.75]Ginger was my best friend too.
[04:27.91]How I wished I could help her.
[04:36.70]Not long after that, a cart passed me carrying a dead horse.
[04:42.68]Its head hung out of the back.
[04:46.13]Its eyes were sad and sunken.
[04:52.93]It was so dreadful that I couldn't look.
[04:58.43]I turned away, but as I did, I saw the horse had a streak of white down its forehead.
[05:07.84]Ginger.
[05:11.25]Was it her?
[05:15.66]I hoped it was, for then her troubles would be over.
[05:22.62]Poor Ginger.
[05:26.67]If her owners had been kinder, she would never have suffered so badly.