Joy Richardson was remembered as an opinionated, ferociously competitive and sometime outrageous character at a Sunday afternoon celebration of life in Langley for the well-known horsewoman, who passed away in August at the age of 92.
About 90 people turned out to reminisce about Richardson, a tireless campaigner for Langley’s equestrian community and founder of the Spirit of the Horse Garden in Campbell Valley park.
“Joy was a spirited as her horses,” said Joe Hargitt, director of the Pacific Parklands Foundation, in a letter read at the event, held at the High Point Equestrian Centre.
Hargitt said the charitable foundation, which helps maintain the Spirit of the Horse garden, would hear from Richardson if she felt the work wasn’t up to her standards.
“She called me many times to tell me how I could be doing a better job (but) I never felt offended by that as I know Joy had a good heart and her motives were good,” Hargitt said.
“She will be missed.”
The event was organized by long time friend Burgi Rommel, who knew Richardson for over 40 years and called her a “force to be reckoned with.”
“She had no trouble voicing her opinions and if you disagreed, she would voice them a little louder until you heard her,” Rommel told the attendees, drawing knowing laughter.
Rommel said Richardson was the sort of person who would sleep in the back of her truck during competitions, even late in life, because she didn’t want to leave her horse unattended.
Richardson reserved a special kind of indignation for people who didn’t treat horses to her standards, Rommel said.
“There were occasion of Joy running across a warm-up arena to tell a rider off if she didn’t like what she saw,” Rommel said.
“She would walk through the stabling area at night and make sure the lights were turned off so the horses would get a good night sleep.”
Richardson was the force behind the Spirit of the Horse Garden on 208 Street.
Located at the official entrance to the Campbell Valley Park, it features the names of over 300 horses and their owners on bronze plaques, resting on a four-foot brick wall.
It has a stone carving of a rearing horse, surrounded with flowers, along with flowers and shrubs in beds throughout the three-quarter acre property.
Even when Richardson became too frail to look after the garden herself, she would have Rommel drive her by to make surer it was looked after properly.
“Of course there were always too many weeds, the shrubs weren’t pruned right and the lawn wasn’t cut,” Rommel said, smiling.
Richardson drove with a certain panache, Rommel recalled.
“I remember her coming for a visit and not finding the latch to keep my front gate open (then) arriving at my front door to inform me that she drove her car into my gate to get through as there was no way to keep it open.”
READ MORE: Joy Richardson honoured
Born Oct. 5, 1925, in Lincolnshire, England, Richardson emigrated to British Columbia in 1957, and in 1969 bought Heritage Stables in Aldergrove. She won many awards with her quarter horses, Hyline Gentry and Hyline Paladin.
Later, after returning to England for several years, she came back to Langley and purchased a small farm near Campbell Valley Park.
In 2011 Richardson left Langley and moved to a retirement home in White Rock. That same year, she was presented with a certificate of appreciation for her work on behalf of the Township.
dan.ferguson@langleytimes.com
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