"I've known Tina since the summer of 1987.

I was a newcomer to the barn where she boarded her broodmare, “Poppy” and her Hanoverian gelding, “Mikey.” At first I only noticed where she had been. No matter how early I arrived at the barn, every need of her horses had been addressed. And then she was on to her daily rounds taking care of horses all over the East Bay area of San Francisco. Her constant companion was her little Border Collie, “Marjorie” gallopping alongside Tina or wagging her tail nonstop in the truck. But it was my evening trips to the barn where I really began to notice and appreciate the work that Tina was doing with Mikey.

Mikey was the sort of horse that everybody dreams about. He had that old fashioned George Stubbs-type of look. Very overdone in style and utterly flamboyant in his gaits. He would easily have been an international horse had it not been for the fact that he had been pulled on and held and overmanaged all while the spurs dug in to drive him onward. He had become, in short, a neurotic mess. He wore his anxiety like a cloak. In the beginning he would sweat and drop manure when the tack was put on. Through the Summer and into the Winter I would stop to watch her work with this horse and I could see that before me was a person who not only knew the technical side of riding, but also the artistic, compassionate, empathetic, right brained side. The place where “Art” resides. The way that she worked with this magnificent and emotionally tortured horse was a lesson in “joining up,” which I only realized later when I saw the cowboy TV shows on The Horse Channel. And she did it without any twirly roping or little white sticks. Any of that stuff would have sent him into a panic.

Many evenings turned to night as I stood hanging over the fence rail watching her work with Mikey. Over time she brought Mikey to Grand Prix. A feat that I believe no one else could have achieved. She built a foundation of love and trust with the horse and added the best of the art of classical horsemanship.

Tina was always interested in “what else” we can do for the horse. She investigated and studied equine chiropractics, bodywork and acupuncture finally adding chiropractic work as her primary adjunct to her veterinary work. Sometimes the “what else” could take a measure as simple and clever as adding a portable cassette tape of classical music in the horse trailer feed manger opposite the side where Mikey was loaded. Any trip regardless of length was anxiety ridden for Mikey. He'd paw and worry himself to a frazzle. However, music calmed him like nothing else. But the only one that really had magic for him was the “underwear music”, the free tape from the Victoria's Secret store, a collection of the “Great Classics.”

By 1988 Tina and her husband decided that they would rent a facility where they could rehab performance horses. This was in response to growing requests from people who wanted them to care for competition horses that needed various types of rehab before they could return to work. Alan Blanke, her husband, is a Veteranarian who specializes in both teeth and feet. They asked me if I would accompany them in this venture and of course for me it was like a dream come true. We did not have treadmills or swimming pools. The farm was almost a hundred acres. When they were ready, we rode the horses in every type of terrain. I lunged some of the horses at a walk on all sorts of varying inclines. We did interval training, strength training, Chiropractic, bodywork, trails, cavaletti and copious amounts of cookies. One particularly famous show jumper won a Grand Prix jump off in Los Angeles three days after we sent him home. He was in absolute peak form.

Here I was able to see the remarkable transformation of horses who were given every mode of therapy that would address their primary issues as well as associated ones and the importance of an atmosphere and training philosophy that does not constantly jangle their nerves. This experience ignited in me a life long interest and love of bodywork for humans and animals.

During this time Tina also acquired a fairly unique Thoroughbred stallion, “Cloned Steel.” Clone was unique in that he was a Thoroughbred that did not come from racing lines. His ancestors were hunters and jumpers. At that time such Thoroughbreds were becoming a rarity. Tina was interested in developing a breeding program that would follow the classical breeding practices that created the talented warmblood lines in Europe. In this approach, you “put the blood on top” meaning that you breed the warmblood or cold blood mare to a Thoroughbred stallion. By using a quality bloodhorse such as Clone on Warmblood mares, she hoped to create an ultimate sport horse with the endurance, lightness and speed of the Thoroughbred without the hot temperament aspect that had turned so many adult amateurs away from the breed. The jumping lines were completely different from the racing lines. Who even knew there were jumping lines for Thoroughbreds. Where the heck were they except for this gorgeous stallion?

I don't think that unless one has ever tried to introduce change to a staid body or organization, that it can be appreciated that this is like rolling a 30 ton ball up a hill. One must fight “tradition” and that has a way of becoming cement. Before she could start breeding, Tina had to achieve Warmblood breed organization approvals for her stallion. This meant taking him to the keurings for every major Warmblood organization. I went to a few of these with Tina and it was truly uplifting to see how much appreciation there was on the part of the judging committees for the qualtiy of horse that she was presenting for approval...in spite of how much work and resistance there might have been to allowing him to come for judging in the first place. At the Trakhener keuring, Clone placed first in the jumping even tho he had not jumped competitively in several years. And he outscored younger Trakehner stallions. The late dressage judge and co-founder of the Dutch Warmblood Studbook of North America, Elizabeth Searle, felt so strongly about his quality and the need for this type of quality in the Dutch breeding program that she helped arrange for him to attend the Dutch Keuring. The Dutch brand is the most difficult to achieve and it was his crowning glory. Tina relentlessly pursued the promotion of this beautiful stallion while training him to Grand Prix, showing and training Mikey all while running her veterinary practice and layup facility. Were it not for her passion and dedication to classical dressage, she never would have bothered to take on such a campaign. This characteristic pervades everything that Tina does. Any venture she begins is complete and whole hearted through to the end.

In the late 90's I bought a Norwejian Fjord horse. The intent was to have a driving horse as I had become interested in carriage driving. No sooner did I get the Fjord home than my second level dressage horse woke up with multiple twists and died that afternoon at Davis. I came home with nothing but a halter and 14k on my credit card. So I turned to the adorable little 14h Fjord mare to ride as well as to drive. Tina helped me train her in dressage and in 2003 my mare won the first ever “Dressage Pony” award for the highest scoring pony in dressage in California while also quailfying for the CDS annual show. This could easily be filed under Miracles!! but it was nothing less than the great work she did with Wild Thing and me.