Back in the late 1950s, Deirdre and her friend Sarah, both just nineteen, came to America from post-war Britain, where shortages still prevailed and ration books were in use. Sarah was to train horses and riders for Jamie Kreuz at Bryn Mawr Farms outside Philadelphia. Deirdre was to work for the Insurance Company of North America in Philadelphia and help Sarah on weekends. Their adventures discovering America, land of plenty, while struggling with a lively collection of foxhunting horses, timber horses, and show horses, were published in five parts on these pages and popularly received. (Use our Search function with the author’s name to find those stories.) What follows is a new installment revisiting “Pink Gin, The Beer Swilling Timber Horse.”

Illustration by Rosemary H. Coates

Sarah and I had not been long in the States when Pink Gin arrived at Bryn Mawr Farms. Billy, who mucked out for us, was, as usual, the first to find fault with him.

“He do get drunk, he do. Proper beer-swiller he be. And he eats eggs and molasses with all his feed. Lord, if only I could eat like that!”