Back in the day, Tom McNair, Times columnist— and for many years, one of the industry’s top trainers—also delighted audiences with some spectacular performances by Gleannloch’s straight Egyptian Arabians and later, with clients’ horses. One of these was Tammen, the late actor Patrick Swayze and wife, Lisa Niemi’s straight Egyptian son of Abenhetep (*Ibn Hafi za x *Omnia, by Alaa El Din). We’re sure that Patrick Swayze and Tammen, inseparable in life, are together again, in a land that knows no parting, as a familiar country ballad suggests. Another frequent mention in past issues was silver-haired Arabian judge Peter Cameron, whose learned decisions were never, or hardly ever, questioned. From 1974 through 1980, the St. Catherine’s, Ontario, horseman was the world’s highest rated Arabian horse judge. He was every show committee’s number one choice until he retired a few years ago. His memories, and his memory, are encyclopedic. For instance, in a recent conversation with a group of admirers, Cameron recalled that at the 1973 U.S. Arabian National Championships, when he selected Khemosabi that year’s U.S. National Champion Stallion, “His coat was so shiny, you could see yourself in it!” We also seem to remember that he (Peter Cameron, not Khemosabi) won the no-holdsbarred egg-and-spoon competition at the first and only Star World Show. This seldommentioned Scottsdale gala was held in several enormous, drafty, connected tents, replete with uncomfortable seating and an elaborate indoor water fountain that kept changing colors. Port-apotties, set up a couple steps from the tent’s main entrance, definitely robbed the evening of some of its glamour and mystery.
If you picked up an Arabian horse magazine during the 1970s, chances are there was a Friendship Farms ad on the inside front cover, or maybe the back cover, with eye-catching artists’ renderings of the stallions Geym (*Raffles x Rageyma, by *Mirage) and Tom McNair *Nizzam (Rissam x Nezma, by Rafeef). Friendship Farms belonged to John Deere heiress Patricia “Tish” Hewitt and her husband, William, who was John Deere’s CEO from 1955 to 1982. The Hewitts bought Geym from Roger Selby in 1942; they imported Tammen and Patrick Sway ze. *Nizzam from Crabbet Park in 1961 with Lewisfield’s owner, James F. Lewis Jr. Ah, Lewisfield! It was the birthplace of more than 300 Arabians of distinguished English lineage, most of whom had “Lewisfield” before their names. They were born during the 1960s,
DECEMBER 2010 | 115