Lendon Gray (2011)

To honor her steadfast belief that dressage benefits all equines and all riders, especially youth. From Olympic Games and USDF Instructor Certification to her Dressage4Kids organization with its scholarship program, Lendon's Youth Dressage Festival and the Emerging Athletes Dressage Program, she has championed kids, ponies, straight talk, hard work, good instruction, and great horsemanship.

Induction Speech:

I can honestly say forty three years ago, the summer I turned thirteen, while I was swimming in the pond at Puckerbrush Farm it never occurred to me that I would be one day standing here honoring this year's inductee to the USDF Roemer Hall of Fame. A lot has happened in those forty three years, especially for Lendon. Growing up in Maine, Lendon, the daughter of Corinne and Sam Braley Gray, was riding a horse with her mother before she could walk. In 1988 she said of this wonderful woman who generously gave back to the horse world and who I knew through her involvement with the US Pony Club: "My only teacher was my mother, a Virginia horsewoman who had transplanted her enthusiasms to New England."
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