Where Are They Now?

Martha Tompkins Jordan was born into the rodeo world — her grandfather, Everett Colborn, was known around the US as the “father of big time rodeo,” and ran the World Championship Rodeo from 1936 to 1960. Her father, Harry Tompkins, was an eight-time world champion.

Now, as a longtime career horse trainer and a rodeo champion herself, she’s earned her place in a long legacy of stars. “It was never really a job,” she said. “It’s always been my passion.”

Jordan was born and raised in Dublin, and graduated from Dublin High School in 1970. Although she knew she wanted a career that allowed her to ride horses, she decided to attend Tarleton to study biology and medical technology, “as a safety net,” she said.

While at Tarleton, she competed on the women’s rodeo team there with great success. In 1971 she won the NIRA Southwest Region Barrel Racing Championship in 1971, and her team attended the world championships.

One day, at a competition, she met another rodeo competitor from New Mexico, Ed Wright. They started dating, and Jordan transferred to Eastern New Mexico University in Portales to go to school with him. She continued to compete there, and earned another championship in 1972.

When Jordan graduated from college in 1976, she spent a year-and-a-half working as a lab technician at All Saints Hospital in Fort Worth before jumping into a career as a horse trainer. “I trained some horses throughout college, but had not done it in the professional sphere,” she said.

Her first training job was for a family in Oklahoma who ran a horsemanship camp that she had attended when she was 12, and later worked for as a camp counselor. “It was just kind of natural to go back and work for them training horses,” she said.

She stayed there for a little over a year before moving back to Texas to open her own horse training business, in partnership with her husband Ed. For the next few decades, the couple trained champion barrel horses at their Slash W Ranch in Stephenville.

They would often be training over a dozen horses at a time, working with them daily and riding them in futurity and derby competitions. They also taught clinics, developed their own line of saddle and tack products, wrote a book called Barrel Racing: Training the Wright Way, and trained their own horses to continue competing in rodeos around the state. “My training life has been very fulfilling,” Jordan said. “We’ve had numerous students or people that bought horses from us that went on to win championships or go to the NFR and compete there.”

Ed passed away in 2016, but Jordan has continued to train horses at the ranch. She still competes from time to time, and plans to continue training horses for the foreseeable future.

In 2018 she remarried to Larry Jordan, another rodeo man, and together they host a yearly reunion for the rodeo community. When they’re not working, the Jordans enjoy traveling around the US, both for business trips like horse races and sales, and for pleasure.

She is also involved with the Cowboy Church of Erath County, where she runs the Barrels and Bibles events. Her faith has been integral in helping her overcome any challenges she’s faced over the years.

“Life is a challenge, and some days are more challenging than others, but I think if you made that in a positive manner and with faith in your heart, that you’re definitely going to get through it,” she said. “You may not get there exactly when you have planned, but I do believe that God has a plan for all of us, and we have to follow that.”

Throughout her life, Jordan has taken inspiration from her mother, Rosemary Tompkins, and her grandmother, Ava Colborn. “There were a number of women in my life who guided and advised me, but those two were my greatest inspiration,” she said.

Tompkins’ advice to Dublin graduates is to not feel disadvantaged for coming from a small town. “Dublin has always been a very small school,” she said. “But it doesn’t matter where you graduate from — I think that if you want to achieve something, you have to go for it. And you can do anything you want.”

Editor’s Note: This column chronicles what Dublin graduates have done since high school. If you have any suggestions for other graduates, email publisher@dublincitizen.com.