The most emotional challenge I participated in was this one! Once again being in Angleton I have few supplies, the rest are at the ranch. The only picture I knew I had of a teacher was up at the ranch..... I just thought well maybe I have one stashed in the couple of hundred still here. Nope but I did find a post card from Glennloch Farms they would have sitting at their stalls. I've others stashed somewhere with my very favorite Arabian Stallion Sakr.
But when I saw the post card I started to cry. I told you emotional for me. Tom wasn't just my trainer, he was so much more. When I was a teenager he was bigger then life......to me on the level of a movie star. I was in love with Arabians....I studied the breed when there was nothing to do. I memorized bloodlines, I studied the pedigrees and the pictures of horses in them to understand what bloodlines did what to get a show champion. I never stopped reading about them. Then at the age of 16 Tom entered my life. I went to a the Gulf Coast Arabian Horse Club Competitive Trail Ride. When I rode in at the half way point there was Tom motioning to me, he was the only open team to do my vet check. I was so floored I couldn't speak. At the end of the check I went back to him as instructed. He took Koki's vitals, looked at the sheet showed it to the vet. Gave me a leg up and looked up at me and said, 'Your mare is in wonderful condition.' All I could softly mutter was a thank you. I stayed silent next riding next to my mother on the trail for at least an hour. It was as if the heavens opened up to me, one of the greatest trainers in the Arabian breed just paid "Me", paid me a complliment. Years later I sat at lunch just after Mom buying her first straight egyptian mare from Tom & Rita I asked Tom if he remembered a grey mare with a young teenager that hardly said a word to him and the mare was in wonderful condition and gave him the year. He said yeah, that mare was incredible on her stats. One of the best I've ever seen on any ride. I said that was me. He looked at me and said really, yeah it was me. Shortly after Tom became my trainer. I learned more from Tom about horses then any other person I every had contact with.
As in the caption of my photo in the Gallery, Tom was more then just my trainer. He was everything to me. And I miss him so very much. Tom, I know you and Sakr are together again, riding the meadows together with both of you smiling. I can't wait to join you both with my horses waiting for me at the Rainbow Bridge.
My tribute to a wonderful man who gave me courage to believe in myself and my abilities with horses when I was but 16.
I used Basic Grey Recess Line of Papers because he was my teacher, mentor and friend. The mare he is riding is the beautiful Nihal imported from Egypt and I remember Tom's wife Rita showing me Nihal on the one trip I made to Glennloch when it was in Spring, Texas. The flower is for the mare as she was a beautiful Chestnut mare with wonderful refinement. Tom and Rita both had a sentiment for older things especially their genealogies. So I distressed the title.
Glad your here girl! I hope your going to do the art in the gallery game?!? I LOVE THAT GAME!
