This year’s Leas award winner has been a Horse Trials member and competitor since she was a junior. She has held numerous positions on our board, and continues to compete and serve Horse Trials PEI at the same time. She has won numerous Best score awards and Championships over the years.
The thing that distinguishes this person’s service is that she competes and volunteers at the same time. She has been president of Horse Trials PEI for the past three years. This year, she competed her gelding, Coppertop, at Training level in the Summer Horse Trial, helped organize all the clinics, and organized the schooling show. She pitched in with the scoring at our Autumn Horse Trial, and I don’t remember a horse trial that I have organized where she was NOT out there building the stadium course or the dressage ring, or riding her dad’s lawnmower around the cross country jumps.
She has been instrumental in developing the lower levels of eventing, to make the
sport more inviting to young riders in this province. I know it was an act of personal sacrifice for her to get the new pre-entry cross country jumps built this year. And, we are the only course in Canada with “the Wave”! This year’s Thomas Leas award goes to Deborah Smith.