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Maren Foster

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RIP 1999 NAJYRC Champion, Latour

Many thanks to Maren Foster, Jordan Beckingham and Piper Cheney for sharing this sweet remembrance of a special horse. 

This is the story of Latour, quite possibly the humblest of all horses.

Everything about Latour is decidedly mundane and yet quite remarkable. Latour was bred by Jens Meyers in Germany to become a top eventer in the days when breeding for an event horse was an afterthought of traditional breeding. Latour was by Lemon xx out of a Trapper mare. To say later Lemon became a well sought-after eventing stallion was an understatement.

As a young kid, my parents bought me a flashy young grey gelding. I brought him along to the Prelim level and knew he was still too much for me. Jonathan Elliott was my stablemate and more suited to the ride on “Aspen” and in exchange he gave me Latour.

Being young and naive, I thought Latour was a bit boring. He was the same horse every day. I look back and have pictures of him jumping over some of the the biggest tracks from coast to coast.

My slightly boring horse, Latour, won the North American Junior & Young Rider Championships in 1999 and I’m pretty sure he could have done it without me. He shaped my career and for what he lacked in gallop and stamina he made up for in heart.

But Latour’s greatest accomplishments went on. He took my sister, Jordan Beckingham, to many wins at Novice and Training. And each time the level got to be too strenuous for Latour, we found a new “greener” person to ride him. Latour always greeted each fresh face with a nicker and a neigh. He was an old soul at heart always looking for a cookie or a cream pie.

Latour was put on this earth to be a teacher. The number of students who learned and thrived because of him is incredible. Even last week, my other sister’s two young twins were learning to pull grass out of the ground and feed it to our gentle Latour.