In Memoriam

On September 5th Gloria Anderson, WWII military police officer, champion of women's rights, and avid horse woman, died in the hospital whilst recovering from her surgery there. She was 78.

As far as I know Star was the last baby foal to be born to one of her mares on her property. I wasn't sure Star and I were ready for a dressage show, but we went because we wanted Gloria to see how nicely Star was coming along, maybe even get a ribbon for her. Gloria loved winning ribbons.

On September 6th we took Star to the show. The night before she had been clipped and bathed. The morning of she had loaded and trailered very nicely. We were the first entry in the show, and we tacked up and warmed up without incident. We did our test and completed every element, which was all I had originally wanted. We took third, with a score of 59 and a shiny yellow ribbon. We took some pictures with the ribbon, but Gloria always keeps her horses' ribbons, and Robert says he has plans for this one.

We got a 7 on our free walk; and Robert said that even Gloria would have laughed to learn that the judge had described Star as "calm and obedient." But she really was. During our warm up we checked out every anomaly in the arena with suspicion, but then it was over. Horses were passing us, we were passing horses, no attempted kicking or biting, and towards the end she didn't even bother to pin her ears.

With a little convincing and a lot of apples she got back into the trailer and we went home victorious, albeit with heavy hearts. Robert says Gloria was very happy just to hear that Star would be going to the show, so I know she would have been as proud of her little mare as I am, maybe more so. We dont know yet what is going to happen to her now.

The ribbon she won says, "A place to begin" and I think thats appropriate.