Douglas Lees photoStephen Bruce Smart, Jr., a well-known, highly respected, and popular figure in Virginia’s horse country, died at his home in Middleburg on Thanksgiving Day at age ninety-five.

In his retirement from commerce and government, he established Trappe Hill Farm in Upperville, Virginia, where he owned, bred, and sent winning steeplechase horses to the racecourses. The successful racing and breeding operation, however, was just the tip of the iceberg that encompassed his passion and commitment to horses, foxhunting, showing, conservation of open space, and all the working people and institutions that make up the Community of the Horse. Which was the title of a three-volume set of books he wrote and published, synthesizing how horses play a unique role in knitting entire communities together.

Bruce Smart’s “community” has suffered an immense loss.