Horizon Prep is preparing to open its new athletic complex, a $4 million undertaking funded entirely by donations from the church and school community in Rancho Santa Fe. Horizon will celebrate the project with a ribbon-cutting ceremony on Easter Sunday, April 20, with church services held on the new multi-sport turf field that morning.
“Everything out here is new,” said Executive Pastor Matt Botsford, looking out over the athletic complex’s sprawling eight acres behind the school and church property on El Apajo Road.
The new complex features two sports fields, a total of five acres of natural grass, one field running north and south, and one perpendicularly to allow for flexibility with the brightness of the San Diego sunshine. The field can be used for any field sport including Horizon football and soccer. An elevated platform along the edge of the north-south facing field serves as a viewing area where they can move portable bleachers for Lions fans.
Horizon Prep added three new tennis courts for a total of six, with the new surface coating ready to be laid down in the coming days. The existing tennis courts are lined for pickleball, a popular sport in the school’s physical education program. In the back behind the tennis courts, they added four sand volleyball courts for beach volleyball, one of the fastest-growing sports since becoming a CIF-sanctioned high school sport in 2022.
One of the athletic complex’s most unique features is the 3,500-square-foot artificial turf short-game golf area, set between the grass fields and tennis courts. On the greens, prep golfers can practice putting and chipping and they also added four tee boxes. The golf area is the only high school short-game golf training facility in the western United States, dreamed up by Steve Kaese, campus pastor and PGA golf pro on staff.
“As the only high school in Rancho Santa Fe, Horizon Prep’s golf team receive coaching from our staff PGA pro and train on a one-of-a-kind golf facility where student-athletes practice their short game around the contoured multi-cup green, in two sand traps, and hit approach shots from 20-120 yards from the green,” said Laird Leavitt, Horizon Prep’s head of school.
Alongside the school gym known as The Lion’s Den, two new outdoor volleyball and basketball courts are a couple weeks away from completion. While the grass is still establishing (and benefitting from the recent rains,) the beach volleyball courts have already been in play, hosting high school action.
With sports field space at a locally, Horizon has developed partnerships with community sports organizations, such as Rancho Santa Fe Attack, to run practices and games and hopes to be able to share their space with more schools and leagues.
“We want to be a blessing to the community,” Botsford said.
The athletic complex is just another step in advancing the school’s master plan. Since its founding as just a pre-school 25 years ago, the Horizon campus has gradually grown to a pre-school through high school campus. All of the portables on campus are now gone, with the latest addition of a new classroom and istration building opened in 2023.
Last summer, they completed the new middle school and high school quad at the center of campus where the old portable istration offices and basketball court used to be. Called “The King Quad,” the area is meant to have a collegiate feel, giving the upper-grade students their own space to congregate separate from the elementary school quad. The quad features grassy quadrants, tables, benches and even concrete ping pong and corn hole games, set around a central new one-ton bronze lion statue that matches the one that roars over the Lion’s Den gym.
The very last piece in the school’s master plan is a new chapel, planned for an empty lot on the edge of the King’s Quad. The school is currently engaging architects as they hope to build a place for weekly campus ministry for students, assemblies, and music and theater performances.
