Whether he was riding, grooming or helping mares foal, Buddy King did it all to perfection.
“He was the consummate professional horseman,” said Carol Molony, founder of the National Show Hunter Hall of Fame.
A friend to whoever needed one, Buddy died Thursday night after suffering a stroke. He was 91.
He and his wife, Cookie, were a devoted couple.
“It was an incredible love story,” Barbara Bemelmans of Hunt Cap Farms in Three Bridges said of their marriage, which would have lasted 61 years next month.
She recalled that when Cookie was working as a horse show secretary, which meant many long nights, Buddy wouldn’t eat dinner until she came home to Whitehouse Station, N.J., no matter how late it was.
Buddy and Cookie met at the old Piping Rock Horse Show on Long Island in the early 1960s. The Army veteran was working for Edgar Mills, she was working for Mrs. Thomas Waller, both big names in the sport.
The couple went on to get a job in 1965 with Frank and Mary Chapot, shortly after the U.S. team riders got married. They stayed with the Chapots when they moved from Walpack in Sussex County, N.J., to Neshanic Station in Somerset County.
The Kings traveled to Europe with the team mounts twice.
“We had the big string,” Cookie said proudly, recounting how that included such star show jumpers as Good Twist, Manon, Anakonda, Tomboy and White Lightning.
The Kings did every job around the Chapots’ Chado Farm that had to do with horses. They were fond of the Chapots’ daughters, Wendy and Laura. Wendy Chapot Nunn recalls being led around by Buddy on Good Twist, who wore a little western saddle for the occasion.
“He was great with our kids,” said Mary of Buddy.
She added that the couple “were kind of like family.”
Mary mentioned that the Kings “really cared about each individual horse. They got along with the horses so well, and the horses got along with them.”
The Kings left the Chapots in 1977 and three years later, Cookie was breaking a yearling when she had a bad fall that ended her riding days.
Buddy went to work for the Tewksbury Township road department, but stayed involved with horses. He rode Isleaway Duke, an appendix-registered quarter horse, to five straight non-thoroughbred New Jersey Horse of the Year titles.
In addition to his wife, he is survived by a brother, Mike King of Virginia.
There will not be a funeral. Those wishing to make a contribution in Buddy’s memory may do so to the hospice at Robert Wood Johnson University Hospital Somerset. To donate, click here and specify “hospice” under designation.