Another ghost

When I was twenty two, I moved from Colorado to Tennessee to work at a mobile tack shop on the A show hunter/jumper circuit.

The shop was owned by a woman named Judy and her husband, Dave.

Due to the nature of the business, we had a much more intense relationship than most employees and employers. We worked together, of course, but we also lived together for long periods of time while we were on the road.

I drove their vehicles.

I rode their horses.

I cared for their dogs.

Sometimes - thankfully not often! - I cared for their child.

We shared meals, books and occasionally clothes. For five years, we were practically family.

But we weren't friends. 

We got along fine and were definitely friendly, but it was always stayed very surface level.

Despite all our time together, there was something about her I found unknowable. I didn't understand her. She was a mystery to me.

We stayed in contact for a while after I moved on. Then I moved back to Colorado in 1998, and that was pretty much that.

Judy had some legal trouble in 2012, which both did and did not surprise me.

I'm not going to share the details here. It's easily Google-able if you really need to know.

After that, I began distancing myself from her, particularly when I was talking to hunter/jumper people.

Let me be clear: I have nothing to hide. Judy played a little fast and loose with some of aspects of her business, but overall, things were pretty aboveboard while I was there.

Certainly, we weren't going out in the middle of the night and stealing saddles.

Just before BreyerFest, I was looking up something tack shop related, and I tripped over a news article from last September.

My old boss, Judy, had been murdered in her Ocala, Florida home.

I was shocked. We still have people in common. How did I not know?

No surprise, I've been thinking about Judy a lot since then.

This was especially true while I was in Kentucky.

We attended so many shows there. It was a favorite venue for both of us, and I simply can not look out over the hunter rings and cross country course without thinking of her.

Judy knew how much I loved riding on that cross country course. She always let me hack Woody and CC there on their non-showing days. 

I loved those rides. They are some of my best memories from that part of my life.

Judy was a flawed and complicated human being. I didn't get her, and I'm not sure I ever really knew her. Still,  I can say this with one hundred percent certainty: She was a good horse person.

She took the best care of her horses, she rode well and she was generous in sharing them with me.

That's how I'm choosing to remember her. I hope wherever she is, she's at peace.