PRORODEO Sports News - Nov. 7, 2025

DR. LESLIE SCHUR NAMED PRCA VET OF THE YEAR By Zach Alvira

D r. Leslie Schur has been named the recipient of the 2025 PRCA Veterinarian of the Year Award. A Washington native, Schur has been active in the equine community since she was young and quickly realized her passion for working with horses. She has owned and op erated Desert Pines Equine Center in Las Vegas since 1998, when she joined the practice with Dr. Garth Lamb. Retired now, Lamb

impression someone else had been chosen for the presti gious annual award. “I was in a meeting about 3 or 4 hours earlier putting my vote in and I thought it was all decided,” Schur said. “It was a huge surprise.” A professional barrel racer in her free time, Schur and her husband, Darrell Moser, have three daughters

who have followed in her footsteps as barrel racers themselves. One of her daughters, who is a barrel racer at West Texas A&M, recent ly applied to veterinarian school. “I always tell them, ‘You should look at how many second and third generation veterinarians there are because they grew up alongside us,” Schur said. “They know what it’s like, they know the work, and they just love it like we do. She’ll be bigger and better than I am.” Schur’s philosophies are simple: Treat every horse like the true athlete it is and maintain an open line of communication with everyone involved, from the riders to the farriers to the doctors caring for the athletes. That mindset, along with her ever-growing passion for the profession, has allowed her to remain

still makes yearly visits to the clinic. On Friday, Oct. 17, during one of those visits, he had the honor of informing Schur she had won the PRCA Veterinarian of the Year Award. “When we were visiting, he had to take a phone call for a minute then he came back,” Schur said. “He’s like, ‘OK, I guess I’m the one that gets to tell you.’ So, Garth Lamb, who I rode on his coattails when I moved to Las Vegas and joined him in the practice, was the one to tell me. He was Veterinarian of the Year in 2011, so that was a pretty special honor.” A 1995 graduate of Michigan State Univer sity, Schur completed an internship with Arizona Equine before joining Desert Pines. Since the start of

Courtesy Photo

her career, she has served on the American Association of Equine Practitioners’ Equine Welfare committee, served as the co-moderator for the Western Performance Horse Rounds, currently serves as a member of the AAEP Perfor mance horse committee and has worked closely alongside the PRCA animal welfare group. She has been selected as one of the veterinarians for the Wrangler National Finals Rodeo 29 times and serves on the committee that votes for the PRCA Vet of the Year. Schur said her selection came as a surprise, as she was under the

successful for 30 years. Winning the PRCA Vet of the Year Award on the 30th anniversary makes it all the more special. “Every little girl’s dream is to be a barrel racer in that little yellow arena,” Schur said of the Thomas & Mack Center. “I’ve been down there a lot, unfortunately not on a horse, but I’ve gotten to help a lot of the people along the way. It’s a pretty special thing to work with a group we have become pretty familiar with and almost like a family every year. It’s been quite an honor to have that position. This is just icing on the cake.”

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