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- Born a slave in 1859 in Columbia, Missouri, he moved to Mexico Missouri after the Civil War, where he found work as a stable boy. Bass eventually became a trainer and established a reputation for training even the most wild, violent horses. Credited as a founder of the American Royal Horse Show. For a half century, Bass trained thousands of horses to prance, bow, curtsy, dance, do the cakewalk and dozens of other tricks. He invented (but refused to patent) a special bit that is still in use today to ease the pain that horse endured during training. Bass performed before U.S. Presidents Coolidge, Cleveland, McKinley, Theodore Roosevelt and Taft. He was also honored by Queen Marie of Rumania at the St. Louis Horse Show. During his career, he won competitions at every horse show in the country, earned more than 2,000 blue ribbons and won championships at two world's fairs. For many years, he was the only African- American to exhibit at the American Royal Horse Show, where audiences remembered him as the high-hatted rider of Belle Beach, his most famous mare. There is a museum for Tom Bass in Mexico Missouri, not far from the cemetery.
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1859 - 1934 (75 years)
