Bruce Smart retired 15 years ago to Trappe Hill Farm in Upperville, Virginia, following an international business career that included assignments as CEO of the Continental Group, a diversified Fortune 100 Company, and as US Undersecretary of Commerce for International Trade.

He is currently active in breeding and racing Thoroughbreds. A life-long conservationist, he has written two books – Beyond Compliance: A New Industry View of the Environment and Indian Summer: A Memoir, as well as numerous published articles on the environment, business ethics, and equine subjects.

His wife Edie is Joint Master of the Fairfax Hunt. They have four children, eleven grandchildren, and a great granddaughter.

The seeds of this book lie in an earlier effort, a personal memoir entitled Indian Summer. In writing that book it became apparent that in rural northern Virginia and adjacent areas horses play an unique role in bringing people together, creating what we are calling A Community of the Horse. And so, with some outside encouragement and considerable internal enthusiasm, we set about exploring the relationships that result in this “Community.”

To do so it seemed best to let members of the Community tell its story as they see and have experienced it, in their own words wherever possible. However, as Community members ourselves, it has been tempting, and easy, and perhaps even necessary to include personal experiences. Hopefully the reader will understand and forgive these autobiographical insertions.

Like its predecessor, this book is compiled from a collection of writings – essays, interviews and descriptions of events – made over the period of years adjacent to the advent of the new century. These pieces have now been arranged in what is hoped to be a logical development of the subject. We describe a sampling of the personalities, experience, opinions and events encountered, the observations made, and the memories retained during a random walk of several years through the horse country of the Virginia Piedmont.

The writer hopes the reader will enjoy following along this path, savoring both the familiar and the less well known aspects of our time and place. For himself, he knows that his journey has confirmed and strengthened his respect, gratitude and affection for his neighbors and the horses that connect us to one another.

“Mr. Smart has opened the door to what many outsiders may have thought to be a closed, aloof society. Through his interviews he has shown the diversity of the people and the horses in our community, and most of all he has shown the willingness of the people to share their passion with anyone who speaks the right language… ‘horse.’"

—Tommy Lee Jones
Huntsman, Casanova Hunt; Manager, Upperville
and Warrenton Horse Shows; and a writer on equine subjects

“In A Community of the Horse Bruce Smart displays his mastery of research and story telling. In doing so he captures the mystique of our sporting life."

—Kenneth Y. Tomlinson
President of the National Sporting Library and former Editor-in-Chief, The Readers Digest