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46 JA N UA R Y/ F E B R UA R Y 2 016 UNTACKED COVER STORY LIKE A STEEL TRAP We're sitting on the sofa of his Wellington, Fla., home. All around us, the walls of George's house are lined with memories, photos of horses and students—many of them Olympic medalists—from the present and the past. Many of the photos are inscribed with messages of sincere appre- ciation for his guidance. Not much in George's home is just idle decoration—a closer examination of a lovely brass clock on a table next to the sofa reveals it as a trophy from the 1960 Lucerne (Swit- zerland) horse show. A picture of him at age 22, accepting a trophy from Queen Elizabeth at the 1960 White City Horse Show in London, sits on a gleaming table next to an image of him walking the show jumping course at the 2004 Olympic Games with the U.S. eventing team and snapshots of himself with favorite students such as Anne Kursinski. His team silver medal from the 1960 Rome Olympic Games hangs in a simple wooden frame near the foyer. Ask George anything about any one of the hundreds of photos, and he can instantly tell you the year and location it was taken, along with the names—and correct spellings of those names—of all those pictured. George's memories aren't just hanging on walls or lining trophy cases. ey're filed with ruthless precision and indelible detail in his mind. His photos are a visible record of George's incredible accomplishments as a rider, teacher and chef d'equipe of the U.S. team. His trophies from his historic wins in the ASPCA Maclay and AHSA Medal finals in 1952, at age 14, shine as brightly as the day he won them. ey're displayed alongside tokens of appreciation for lifetime achievement and contributions to the sport. Along with the hundreds of photos are countless books, filling the shelves. ere are a few contemporary fiction titles, like Dick Francis and Barbara Kingsolver, but the vast majority are tomes about his all-consuming passion: horses and the art of riding. "I am fascinated by riding," he says, simply and with ear- nest conviction. "I never stop reading. My room is littered with articles and books and magazines." It is, though "littered" isn't quite accurate. e jour- nals and magazines, which include not only typical hunter/ jumper publications, but also titles devoted to natural horse- manship, are placed meticulously. Nothing in George's life is just flung down or haphazard. George's voracious appetite for writings about riding goes hand in hand with his intent observation of horses and riders in action. He might be the king of the hunter/jumper world, but he's fascinated to see any horse in action, no mat- ter the discipline. He soaks every moment in, filing notes away in that steel trap of his. "I'm learning. I'm learning how to ride," he intones. Walter "Jimmy" Lee has been his friend for more than 50 years and recalls that in a conversation a few years ago, George kept telling him about a book he was reading. "It's called Tug Of War, he told me, and he told me I had to read it," Lee recalls. "I had no idea what book it was until I got off the phone and looked it up. It's a book writ- ten by a German veterinarian about how today's dressage affects the horse skeletally. "I thought to myself, 'ere's George, with everything he's done, and he's reading a book about training horses.' I won- George Morris' home office is lined with silver- plated memories of some of his favorite victories. MOLLY SORGE PHOTO

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