Unusual painting of beautiful horse jumping w/faceless woman rider?

I found this at a thrift store yesterday. I thought the horse was nicely done, but then I noticed the lady rider was faceless!
The horse looks too well done but the faceless lady rider keeps drawing me away from the horse!
I tried googling the artist's name but kept getting Herald instead of Hearld?
Also on the back written in pencil is: This belongs to Laura Houston 1981 - in what looks almost like a child's writing?

Any thoughts or help w/artist would be appreciated.

 

Here is writing on back using a different filter.

 

She’s got the side of her face showing Journey.

 

I wish the horses eye had some light showing, looks like an empty hole.
It’s a bit paint by numbers in its style, I feel it’s been copied from a photo or another persons artwork.

 

My first thought was paint by numbers feel but the horse is done too well - even the muscles under the skin.

 

Rather an odd one. Unless the lady rider has heard a sudden gunshot, or a frantic call for help, she should be looking right between that horses ears.

 

Here's a Laura Houston, riding instructor at Penn State in 1984.

https://www.collegian.psu.edu/archi...cle_38d8e591-3c83-5cec-b471-86ea6074d827.html

Debora

 

It's a 1980s "style".

 

I found a Florida painter named Marvin Hearld who is still working. It appears that he was old enough to have also been working in the early 1980s. He does do some paintings of horses, and I found a 2019 painting of a waterfall that was signed HEARLD in all caps. However, the current paintings have more of a smooth style (tighter brushstrokes, I mean). But maybe that could change over almost 40 years?

Here is one of the horse paintings (no signature visible)
https://fineartamerica.com/featured/the-pony-marvin-hearld.html

Here is the waterfall painting with a signature at lower left.
https://fineartamerica.com/featured/waterfall-fantasy-marvin-hearld.html

And here is a display of many of his paintings. None of these seem to allow downloading an entire image.
https://fineartamerica.com/profiles/marvin-hearld

He also has an Instagram account, which you can find by searching his name. I'm not on Instagram.

I'm not positive that it's the same person, but know you are in Florida, @journeymagazine , so maybe!

 

Not a common spelling/name so maybe - but those look a lot nicer than mine to be honest!

 

Yes, but also... he could have improved his technique over time. Yet it might not be the same person.