It’s a note that Mitch Melville treasures. Legendary horseman George H. Morris handed it to her one day 14 years ago while he was teaching a clinic.

“I shall never forget Jack Melville,” it reads. “He made the horse who made me.”

Mitch’s father, Jack, didn’t jump to the championship medals or fame and fortune that Morris has. But he was a talented trainer in the post-World War II era and he sold Morris his first horse, the famous Game Cock on which Morris won the ASPCA Maclay and AHSA Medal finals in 1952 at age 14. Morris frequently refers to the horse as the one who put him on the track to his later fame.

Jack’s story is like so many of those in that era. Born in Scotland, he grew up in Canada after his family moved and eventually ended up in the United States. He served as a riding instructor at Ft. Riley, in Kansas, in the cavalry, in the ‘30s and during World War II.

Jack Melville showing in the ’40s.

After the war, Jack set up a stable in Hyde Park, N.Y., training horses and riders. He also served as a Master of the Rombout Hunt. “He trained at Hyde Park and taught at Vassar College. Jacquie Kennedy Onasssis rode there. He and Jacquie used to go for trail rides in Central Park,” said his daughter, Mitch.

Jack showed hunters and was well known for producing lovely horses for sale, including Game Cock, who he sold to Morris as a 6-year-old.

Jack Melville showing The Count, one of his more well known mounts, in 1952. This photo is the cover of a USHJA program.

In the mid-1950s, Jack and his family moved to California, where he started a training business in Woodside. In 1965, he began supervising the riding program at Stanford University’s famed Red Barn. In between lessons, he judged at some of the top shows across the country.

“He was a beautiful rider,” Mitch said. “He was very funny, with a very dry sense of humor. He teased everybody. He was just a good, old-school trainer back in the day.” Jack passed away in 1978 at age 69.

Mitch and her sister Sheila both rode as children, and Mitch is now married to a rodeo clown and raises miniature horses and cattle on a farm in Loomis, Calif.. “George comes and gives a clinic a few miles away from my house every year and I go and visit with him. He’ll tell stories about my dad. He wrote me that note and gave it to me one day,” she said.

Jack Melville’s name might have gotten a bit lost in history over the years, but he’ll always be known as the horseman who made the horse that made George Morris.

(Last week’s Throwback Thursday post was a 2006 column written by George Morris for the Chronicle, “Where Did We Come From? Where Are We Going?“)

Jack Melville.