edited article by Kenneth J. Braddick at dressage-news.com
WELLINGTON, Florida, Mar. 22, 2022–Terri Kane likes to remember she came from a family of five in a trailer home wondering where groceries would come from as she repays her good fortune as a major supporter of horse sports and efforts to help those in need in the community where she lives.
Terri’s Diamante Farm was the sponsor last week of the Under-25 Nations Cup at Global Dressage Festival of which she was a founding partner as she has been for youth equestrian activities. Recently, she joined jumping rider Georgina Bloomberg in sponsoring U.S. Paralympic dressage rider Sydney Collier.
She thrives on the broad range of activities that keep her busy–keeping an eye on horses she has at the farm in Germany of Hubertus Schmidt, attending international youth competitions she sponsors, a corporate sponsor of the Great Charity Challenge at Palm Beach International Equestrian Center that has raised several million dollars, Challenge of the Americas to raise money for breast cancer research. She packs boxes of food for families in need and providing materials to school teachers for students who may not afford them. And helps provide services for seniors.
And she’s overseeing reconstruction of a farm bought recently where she now lives and where her daughter, Devon, will also as well as operate her training business.
Terri’s life in Wellington began two decades ago when Devon moved from their home in San Antonio, Texas to train full time with Olympic rider Michelle Gibson at a facility she and her husband, Richard, bought and named Diamante Farm. There, she says, with Devon and a son, “I was the Mom that worked at the schools. . .volunteered. Both kids were very active in school stuff.”
With her son remaining in San Antonio where she was executive assistant to her husband who had built one of the country’s largest Ford dealerships in a state where Ford pickup trucks are as common as cowboy hats, she commuted weekly to the “English” riding world in Wellington.
Before Wellington, she rode Western for fun, mostly on quarter horses, though in high school she got a Thoroughbred off the track that she taught to barrel race. As a result of Devon starting out with hunters, Terri did it, too. Both had accidents so Devon switched to dressage. Riding in clinics with Michelle Gibson fanned the fire to pursue the sport and moving to Wellington.
While Devon trained with Michelle, Terri spent more time in Wellington. “I just became busy here,” she explained. “I’m one of those people that can’t just sit. I still had things going on at home but started getting involved in life in Wellington, making this my community.”
She actively supported creation of new show grounds for dressage and became a founding sponsor of Global. “I thought it was so important for the sport. I thought this was a perfect place to do it.
“I knew it had the possibility, it just had to have the people believe in it. I think it was going in a good direction but I thought we needed something to help build it to get people more interested and involved and get more young people to stay in the sport. I believed this place could help to make that happen, just like it did for jumping.
“Sometimes I sit back and think, ‘Oh, wow! This is cool.’ From what it was to what it is now. People talk about it all over the world.”
Prospective new ownership of the dressage circuit will, she believes, give even more of a boost.
“One of the things I’ve always believed in and what this place is to be better you’ve got to have better,” Terri said. “To be better at something you have to have someone pushing you that you’re trying to catch or that’s catching up with you. I didn’t think we had a whole lot of that. So I think with Europeans coming over it caused people to want to step up. As Devon says, ‘I just ride so much better being at Hubertus’s barn.’ It’s just that mentality –‘I have to put my best coat on’.”
Terri is at home in Germany where Devon, until Covid-19, regularly spent summers training with Hubertus Schmidt. They have three horses currently at his facility. Don Angelo, one of their horses, didn’t react well to Florida’s sub-tropical weather so they shipped the horse to Germany for Katharina Hemmer to compete in the Under-25 division and now is a lesson horse with the rider.
Packing food in a warehouse and handing it out at schools are experiences that Terri says have changed her.
“I came from nothing,” she said. “I’ve always tried to remember where I came from. That reminds me there are people who go to bed hungry. We always wondered whether we would be able to buy our groceries.
“It just means a lot to me, being that there are so many people that need help. I feel very passionate about giving back—not only money but my time. . .because I can. . .I have time.”
Would she stay in Wellington if Devon quit horses?
“I love it,” was her reply. “I love the sport. I’ve made good friends. I love the horses. This is my life. What an amazing life.”
