Mounted Patrol names horseperson of the year Mounted Patrol names horseperson of the year (March 03, 2004)

By Andrea Gemmet

Almanac Staff Writer

Equestrian enthusiast Adda Quinn won high honors from the San Mateo County Mounted Patrol for her work on a lowly subject -- horse manure. The Belmont resident recently became the 19th recipient of the Outstanding Horseperson-Citizen of the Year award for her advocacy for equestrian trails and her research work to address environmental concerns about horse manure.

Ms. Quinn is the third woman to receive the award from the Mounted Patrol, a Woodside-based private men's club.

She first became involved in the work in 1996, when there was a move to close trails to horses in Edgewood Park. With a background in researching soil contamination for the Electric Power Research Institute, she waded into the "raging controversy" with a research paper on the environmental effects of adding rocks to trails to make them suitable for winter horse use.

"I got way more involved than I wanted to," she says. "I felt the issue at the time really was horse manure on the trails -- and there is a yuck-factor."

But her research showed that harmful bacteria isn't harbored in the manure -- "it really is grass in-grass out," she says -- and she found a mission.

Ms. Quinn co-founded EnviroHorse to raise funds and synthesize research on horse manure to defend equestrian trail use. She volunteers on a number of committees and boards, two local trail patrols, and as an equestrian docent. She also writes newsletter articles under the moniker "Trail Nag."

Don Pugh, the Mounted Patrol member who nominated her, calls her a "tireless defender of equestrian rights."

"Activists have created an onslaught of environmental complaints against horses which Adda has fought with facts, figures and scientific analysis, attending endless dreary meetings, reading piles of documents, and writing rebuttals to ill-founded conclusions," Mr. Pugh says.

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