MHTA held our first annual awards banquet and were honored to have the opportunity to recognize some of our beyond deserving volunteers and public land managers. Please take a few minutes to read through the 2025 awards ceremony to celebrate with us. Nominations are now open for 2026 awards.

Prior to the banquet, we held our member meeting. Remaining on the board are Scott Cope, Anna Thorpe (Lee), Jenny Cook – thank you all for your continued inspiration and service. And we are very excited to welcome Jan Gould to the Michigan Horse Trails Association board. Jan works tirelessly for the horse trails of Michigan as the secretary of MTRA and a volunteer to all. We are thankful to have her valued input for the future of our trails.

Congratulations to our Giving Back Trail Funds Grant winners for 2026. Thank you to all who participated, your continued commitment to improvements to the horse trails of Michigan leaves us in awe.

1st Place, $1000 – Ortonville Recreation Equestrian Association

2nd Place, $750 – Waterloo Horsemen’s Association

3rd Place, $500 – Muskegon County Trail Riders Association

Thank you to Ryan’s Roadhouse for a great venue to hold our first banquet, they were incredibly gracious and wonderful to work with. Cupcakes and Kisses supplied our DELICIOUS dessert bar and made sure there were plenty of sweets for everyone to have more than their share. Thank you to MacKellar Promotional Marketing for the gorgeous awards we were able to share. Tracy Evans works incredibly hard for so many of our trail associations providing their apparel and fundraising opportunities and her company was also able to help us with our awards.

Together, let’s have a successful 2026 riding season and we look forward to seeing many of you on the trails.