Braley Gray was from a boating family yet found himself the patriarch of an equestrian family. Knowing he wasn’t going to beat them, Mr Gray joined them at the family Puckerbrush Farm, the center of Maine Pony Club, dressage, eventing, hunter and jumper activity for nearly 30 years. Braley Gray was usually found building jumps, setting up dressage arenas, backing trailers, extricating cars from the mud and giving moral support. “Two generations of working students and Pony Clubbers at Puckerbrush Farm always knew my father was there to find ways to make the impossible possible,” recalls Lendon Gray. “Without his unending enthusiasm and tireless support, Pony Club, Eventing and Dressage in the Northeast would be very different today.” An annual award in his memory is given to someone who has been instrumental in the development of Dressage in the U.S. over the years.

2000
Mrs. Margarita (Migi) Serrell is a founder and the first president of the American Dressage Institute, the forerunner of the United States Dressage Federation, which is dedicated to education, recognition of achievement and the promotion of the sport of dressage in the United States. In the summer of 1968 the ADI offered its first official educational program, a dressage seminar conducted by Col. Hans Handler, then director of the Spanish Riding School of Vienna. Under Mrs. Serrell’s leadership, permanent riding facilities for the ADI were established at Skidmore College. To fulfill its goal of developing U.S. dressage riders who could be competitive in the international arena, Mrs. Serrell, a Grand Prix level rider, brought to the school top European dressage trainers. Graduates of the ADI program include 1976 Olympic team bronze medalist Hilda Gurney, FEI “O”judge Linda Zang and 1992 Olympic team bronze medalist and USDF certification examiner Michael Poulin, to name a few. The ADI also raised the funds to send the U.S. dressage squad to the 1976 Olympics in Montreal, where they won the Team Bronze Medal. Mrs. Serrell has also served as Master of the Hounds at Fairfield Hunt Club and is one of America’s first women Master of the Hounds. A renowned floral arranger, Mrs. Serrell has written a much-acclaimed book on the subject, The Art of Arranging Flowers.

2001
Mrs. Lazelle Knocke is a nurse educator by profession with a lifelong interest in horses and riding. For more than 40 years Mrs. Knocke has been studying, teaching, organizing competitions and judging dressage. Mrs. Knocke’s leadership in and contributions to our sport include serving as a USAEq Senior Judge and Examiner and officiating at many FEI events in Canada and the US. She is a founder, life member and past president of the USDF and has written numerous articles on dressage in equine publications. A life member of the U.S. Combined Training Association Mrs. Knocke is a former member of its Board of Governors. Currently she is a member of the Executive Board of the Dressage Foundation. Mrs. Knocke and her riding partner, Don Perignon, became the first members of the Centurion Club, whose exclusive membership is limited to horse and rider pairs with a combined age of 100 years and still able to come down the center line and perform.

2002
Ms. Priscilla Endicott had a vision of bringing Dressage to her part of the country, so she founded the New England Dressage Association. She served as the head of NEDA for twenty years and then moved on to the Scholarship Committee. Ms. Endicott’s work served to bring clinicians from all over the world to New England and her experience as a competitor helped to improve the quality of the programs that developed as part of the organization. Ms. Endicott later served on the Board of The Dressage Foundation, working specifically to establish a scholarship fund for judges to travel to Europe to participate in judges’ clinics and to see top class riding. Many may know her also as the author of Taking Up The Reins, an illuminating and heartwarming memoir that chronicles a year spent studying and training her Grand Prix Thoroughbred horse Inca in Germany with master trainer Walter Christensen.

2003
Lowell Boomer, a Nebraska native, periodically visited the U.S. Cavalry School at Fort Riley, Kansas, to watch such eminent riders as Col. Hiram Tuttle and Col. Isaac Kitts school their horses, and then went home to try to emulate them. After establishing his Great Plains Equestrian Center just outside Lincoln, Boomer participated in fox hunting, horse trials and dressage. In the summer of 1972 in response to a growing sentiment that the U.S. needed a dressage organization, Boomer pointed out that Nebraska was the neutral center of the country and offered to “aid the cause any way he could.” In February 1973, the Lincoln-based United States Dressage Federation was formed, as was the Nebraska Dressage Association. Boomer was named executive director of the USDF, a position he held for 12 years followed by a four-year stint as president. In 1989, Boomer stepped down from his leadership position at the USDF and founded The Dressage Foundation, an organization with the mission of cultivating and providing financial support for the advancement of dressage. Boomer has also been named one of the “50 most influential Horsemen of the 20th Century,” by the Chronicle of the Horse.