Black Beauty Timeline and Summary

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Beauty's timeline is basically the book's timeline, so for more details, go ahead and refer to our chapter-by-chapter summaries. That said, here we go:

• Black Beauty is born at Farmer Grey's farm, where he lives happily with his mom. He witnesses some human cruelty toward horses at a young age, including the death of another horse in a hunt, but in general, all is well. Farmer Grey breaks him (well, not literally—it's horse talk for learning to use a saddle and bridle), and sells him to Squire Gordon of Birtwick Park.
• At Birtwick, Beauty lives in a stable under the care of a very kind and competent groom, John Manly, and his equally kind and competent stable boy, James. Beauty also befriends his fellow Birtwick horses, Ginger and Merrylegs.
• Beauty spends some time telling us Ginger's backstory—she had a tough life before Birtwick and tends to bite and kick because of it. However, time at Birtwick mellows her out.
• Beauty loves life at Birtwick, although he has two near-death scrapes. Once he and Ginger are caught in a fire while staying at an inn, but make it out safely, and another time John Manly rides him out at night to fetch a doctor for Mrs. Gordon, and Beauty gets very sick because he's overexerted. But otherwise, all is well.
• Mrs. Gordon's health causes the family to leave Birtwick, and they sell Beauty and the other horses.
• Beauty goes with Ginger to Earlshall to be a carriage and riding horse; Earlshall seems to be a very fancy and pompous place. Here, he has to wear a painful bearing rein for fashion's sake, which is basically torture.
• He rides to rescue a lady at Earlshall when her own horse runs away with her. Our hero.
• One night, Beauty suffers a bad injury while being ridden by his groom, Reuben Smith. Reuben is an alcoholic and is totally wasted at the time. Beauty trips, falls, and throws Reuben, who dies on impact. The fall injures Beauty and scars his knees forever.
• No longer perfect enough to be a carriage horse, Beauty is sold as a job horse to a new owner. There, he withstands poor treatment from clueless drivers and an uncaring owner. He's sold once again to a man who employs a couple of dishonest and incompetent grooms. The man gets frustrated at the extra work of keeping a horse, and Beauty is sold off again.
• This time Beauty's sold at a horse fair to a London cab driver named Jerry Barker. Jerry's a great guy with a sweet, loving family, and although the cab work is difficult, Beauty finds a lot of happiness working with Jerry. At Jerry's he's partnered with an old horse named Captain, and they work long hours under hard conditions.
• While in London, Beauty sees Ginger, who's badly malnourished and mistreated, working as a job horse. Soon after that, he sees her dead body hauled away on a cart.
• The hard conditions eventually get to Jerry and he gets sick, causing him to rethink his cab-driving career. He moves his family to the country and sells Beauty yet again.
• Beauty's new owner is the worst. Beauty's overworked nearly to death and collapses on the street. He thinks he's going to suffer Ginger's fate, but amazingly, he survives. A horse doctor recommends that he be given a chance to recover, and Beauty's master puts him up for sale.
• Beauty's sold again, this time to a kind farmer and his grandson. They nurse him back to health with lots of rest and relaxation, and at last find him a home with a family that recognizes him as Squire Gordon's Black Beauty. They promise never to sell him again.