By Maria M. Lameiras
Dr. Thomas O. Morgan believes in balance.
A successful chiropractic consultant and author, Morgan operated the largest
solo chiropractic practice in the country in the 1970s with the help of his
wife, Mary Ann, who was his office manager. They were also raising three children
and were active advocates for the chiropractic profession.
In addition to all that, the Morgans have kept and shown Tennessee Walking horses
through the years, pursuing an interest that started during Morgan’s childhood
in Park Hills, Ky. It has continued as a family hobby as the passion for the
sport is shared by the couple’s daughter, Amy Morgan McCurdy, and now
her daughters, Hannah and Libby.
Morgan and his wife live on a 75-acre ranch in Cedartown, Ga., where they moved
in 1996 after he retired from practice, returning to an area where Morgan’s
family has deep roots.
“We are right in the area where all of my ancestors are from. My father
was born in Rockmart, Ga. My maternal great, great-grandfather was a Young,
and we now live on Young’s Farm Road, which was named for his family,”
says Morgan. “We are actually living on land that was owned by Augustin
Young before the Civil War. On the Morgan side, I can trace my lineage in this
area right back to Joseph Morgan, who was the first white man in this county
when there were only Native Americans here. My father left during the Depression
and went north. We are the first of the family to come back. We feel really
connected here, really happy.”
After graduating in 1963 from Palmer College of Chiropractic in Davenport, Iowa,
Morgan practiced in Kentucky until joining the Army Reserve. After six months
of active duty, he opened a practice in Warsaw, Ky., where he stayed for five
years before relocating to Verona, Miss.
Morgan bought his first horse, Strawberry, in 1966.
“Two of my uncles had farms and my aunt had a farm as well. We lived in
a suburb, so we didn’t have land to keep horses, but we lived near a city
park where one of my parents’ best friends was a caretaker. They had one
horse left from when they used to patrol the park with horses, and we used to
ride that old horse. I always wanted a farm and horses,” he says. “Mary
Ann always wanted horses too. On our first date I took her out to ride my first
show horse, a white gelding named White Music.”
After the couple married in 1968, they bought a colt and have kept horses almost
constantly ever since. From Warsaw, he and Mary Ann moved to Mississippi, near
Tupelo, where he practiced for 16 years.
“We built our home and a barn in Mississippi. We had a trainer and up
to 10 mares at a time. We had quite a horse operation in Mississippi,”
says Morgan.
The family has traveled to about 10 or more shows each summer since their children
were young.
“We’d go every Saturday night in the summer and then we’d
go to the world grand championship, called the Celebration, in Shelbyville,
Tenn., every year,” says Morgan, who placed third in the championships
in 1978 on a horse named Ebony’s Calcutta.
The couple scaled down their horse operation when they moved to Powder Springs,
northwest of Atlanta, in 1984, keeping only a couple of horses. When they bought
their land in Cedartown, however, they planned around their hobby.
“We built the barn first,” Mary Ann Morgan says. “We came
out every weekend and cleared land. That took a year and a half. We built a
small apartment to live in, then we designed and built the barn first. We had
people helping us, but we did all of the fencing ourselves. We brought the horses
out, then we built the house.”
Taking a very hands-on approach to the creation of their ranch in Cedartown
gave the Morgans a sense of accomplishment and ensured that they would get exactly
what they wanted.
Despite maintaining an active professional schedule, Morgan says he and his
wife are also very hands-on in the care and breeding of their horses.
“I get up and feed the horses in the morning, then again at night. I like
to clean the stalls. I don’t mind getting in the hay and I like looking
after them every day,” he says of their three brood mares, P.J., Lady
and Princess. “We also deliver our colts ourselves. We have a yearling
and a weanling on the ground and we are expecting a baby in September.”
A weanling is a colt less than a year old.
“Amy takes the little ones. We have to wean them away from their mothers
for six months and we have to separate the stallions from the fillies,”
Morgan says. “We have the mares and she takes the colts and we split the
cost of training and we split the profit.”
A colt is ready for training at two years old and, once they’ve been trained,
the Morgans and McCurdy sell the horses for showing.
The Morgans had a scare in April when a tornado, spun off by a band of severe
thunderstorms traveling through the area, touched down on the ranch, causing
roof damage to the house and demolishing four stalls in the front of the barn—the
very stalls the Morgans’ horses would have been in had they not been out
to pasture when the storm hit.
“It was about three in the morning and we were up because of the storm.
I felt the house moving, it was pretty scary. It was very quick, the thing touched
down and then was gone, but it took off the four stalls where the horses run
in and out,” Morgan says. “The horses weren’t hurt, but they
were still pretty spooked.”
Dr. Morgan loves the unique nature of Tennesee Walking horses, a breed he says
was created from crossbreeding Morgan horses and standard-bred pacers.
“Walking horses don’t trot and that makes them unique. They are
noted for their smooth, gliding gait and also for their gentleness and kind
manners,” says Morgan. “Tennessee Walking horses were registered
as a breed in 1947 and were shown in their first Celebration in 1949. They first
started as plantation horses, which were saddle horses with a smooth gait, and
then they were bred with Morgan horses during the Civil War.”
Being in the horse business with his daughter and sharing a love of horses with
his granddaughters helps keep the family close, notes Morgan.
“Amy was the one who loved it the most and she has kept me in it all these
years,” he says.
Showing horses created a special bond between Amy and her father, and she has
enjoyed watching that bond continue between her children and their grandparents.
“I was always the horse nut, as a kid it was something special me and
Dad did together all the time,” says McCurdy. “My 10-year-old, Hannah,
is the one who is horse crazy. She is really involved in showing. She probably
did her first show when she was 2, and my younger daughter, Libby, was about
a year old when she did her first show in the lead line class.” In lead
line showing, the rider sits on a horse led by another person.
Because the McCurdys’ home in Piedmont, Ala., is only 30 miles from the
Morgans’ farm in Cedartown, Hannah and Libby spend many weekends with
their grandparents and the Morgans drive to services at Piedmont United Methodist
Church in Atlanta each Sunday.
“They started taking the girls on Fridays so I could get up early on Saturdays
to get the horses ready for the shows, then I drive over to pick them up and
we all go together,” says McCurdy. “Especially from spring until
fall, we go to horse shows two to three weekends a month.”
Dr. Morgan said his hobby has served as a stress reliever during his busy career.
“It is a very relaxing hobby. When I get around a horse, its beauty and
character, and even its smell, there is something about them that attracts me,”
he says. “I think hobbies can create a lot of longevity for a career because
they will take you out of your routine. No matter what kind of routine you have,
no matter how much you love it, any routine can be stressful.”
Although retired from practice, Dr. Morgan continues to work as a successful
practice broker, consultant and advocate for the chiropractic industry. Morgan
says the underlying philosophy of chiropractic health has had a profound impact
on his life.
“We are teaching a life of natural living and we try to walk the walk.
Health is about balance and harmony in the body. We have both been runners for
25 years and our other hobby besides horses is hiking,” he says, adding
that he and Mary Ann have hiked the Grand Canyon nine times to the bottom and
once from rim to rim.
“Chiropractors, more than any other doctors, are interested in healthy
lifestyles. Being subluxation free, having the nervous system free of any pressure,
being organically nourished and countering the stressors of life with an active
spiritual life is all important. We believe in a Christian lifestyle and that
helps us,” says Morgan. “I have worked very hard in my life. I have
enjoyed my life and my work life and I am enjoying every day now.”