About
Teri Rehkopf, President, CEO of Synergy, Et Cetera Web Design, Inc. dba Horsesinthesouth.com. My background is as an AVP, Sr. Business Analyst, Systems Engineer II, Project Manager, and Computer Security Analyst for Barnett Bank Technologies Division – Asset Management (later this area became Bank of America Asset Management Systems).
Before that, I was the Financial/Systems Analyst for the Investment Division for Barnett Trust Company. My degree is in Computer Information Systems in 1983. (Before I had my children, I was working on a degree in Photography and Design.) While working for the bank Technologies Division and the Trust Company, I wrote business plans/specifications for the bank’s business partners, provided design specs for applications, technical support, database conversion and project manager and Sr. business analyst for the division.
In 2008, I was accepted into the prestgious Princeton Premier Business listing for 2008-2009.
I am a member of USDF, USAE, USEF, USET, NFDA and own a Lifetime USDF/USEF member horse, an American Warmblood out of a champion Budweiser Clydesdale sire – Clan Butter Glenord’s Glened, crossed with a racing TB-App mare, Rocket to Antares (going back to Native Dancer), who I named Glenord’s Rocket Dancer or “Rocki” for her barn name.
Later I bought an 18hh J.R. Khan, seen in my avatar, who was trained to Third level Dressage by my trainer Kathy Daly who raised him from a foal from her stallion, Hurrikhan. Khan ’taught me’ how to ride correctly by him knowing what to do from Kathy’s training. Sadly, I had to sell him a few years ago as my left shoulder was getting so bad (another post will come about that…) that I couldn’t lift his legs to clean his feet, lift the saddle on his back & in general couldn’t take care of such a huge horse (too bad, too… my long legs fit perfectly on his sides).
I currently own a ‘companion horse’ for my mare, an ex-racehorse, Panimetro, rescued from the Virgin Islands, cared for by VICCTRE.org. He had broken his left front leg in 4 places during a race. He laid down for long periods of time and the leg has healed, but does have some calcification in the fetlock. Metro is on the cover, inside and as the December horse on the 2009 VICCTRE calendar. You’ll see him running around still like a racehorse, even with his injured his left front leg!
I adopted ‘Metro’ from Habitat for Horses in March of 2007 when he was brought here from the Virgin Islands. He is such a character and loves people! He can still run around, buck and play and jumps over a water puddle in front of his paddock that can fill up when it rains a lot. Both horses have wonderful stalls with fans and open access to paddocks. Each has their own pasture that the paddock gate opens into, they get fed 3 times a day plus a lot of loving and TLC, so they are in “horse heaven”.
I have ridden all of my life an I am an absolute horse ‘fanatic’! I have ridden most disciplines. When in elementary school, I would walk over 3 miles every Tuesday after school to ride at a rental barn and I rode some of my friend’s horses, too.
Finally, when I was 12, I got a horse of my own (14.3 hh part quarter horse, buckskin) to care for and retrain from being a wild, always wanting to run and jig, to a horse that would walk and canter just from a lift on the reins. My first saddle was a hard McClellan Army saddle that I hated, so I rode bareback most of the time until I finally got Western saddle, then an English saddle in my later teens.
I would do everything on my horse ‘Scottie’ (short for Great Scott – I renamed him from Apache) – riding for miles all around my family’s 30 acres in the woods of Mandarin/Greenland/Bayard Florida area, going swimming bareback in the clear water of the ‘barrow pits’ that were dug to build I-95 next to our land; I would jump over 2 long pieces of skinny baseboard moulding spread out over the long side of 2 sawhorses that I set up as a jump; I would gallop over a 24+ ‘natural’ jump course I made of piled up tree limbs and logs, spanning a couple of miles, weaving in and out of trees, ducking under low-hanging branches, sliding down a steep embankment, and generally being a adventurous, horse-loving teenager.
I would run barrels and do pole bending & competed at a saddle club where I would ride to on Friday nights with a group of others. The saddle club was about 8-10 miles from my house. I would meet up with the other riders about 3 miles from my house & we would all ride together. Then, I would ride back home in the dark, by myself – something you would never let a young girl do in today’s world…
At Florida State University where I started on a degree in spanish & languages, later on photography & design, I rode horses for the FSU Riding club, working the horses and helped to train some of the horses to jump on their cross-country course.
When I lived in Nashville, TN from 1970-80 and was married to Mark Ellerbee of the Oak Ridge Boys (he was their drummer and did backup vocals) I rode, trained and showed a few client horses. In 1973, I bought my own 3/4 Arab and 1/4 Quarterhorse 2 year old stallion to train and show locally. I showed my horse & client’s horses in Western Pleasure, Equitation and Hunt Seat, even placing 11th in the hunt seat class at the 1978 Appaloosa Nationals on a gorgeous black, blanket-spotted stallion I rode for a client. I also rode another gorgeous Palomino stallion in Western Pleasure and a young 16.2 hh Appaloosa gelding.
In 1980, I moved back to my home in Jacksonville, FL (without my horse – I had to sell him in Nashville) and completed my college degree in Computer Information Systems (CIS). I rode friend’s horses off and on and in 1991, I finally got another horse – an ex-racehorse Quarterhorse named ’Sunny’. I began riding him in Dressage and later in hunters and jumpers. I sold him in the mid-90′s and got my mare, ‘Rocki’ as a 2 1/2 year old. Claire Lee of what is now Haddenloch Farm (used to be Dexter Farm) first backed Rocki while I was healing from having 6 cracked ribs from a fall off of my ex-QH racehorse, when I missed a tight turn to a jump (a perpendicular jump that was higher than I was used to and looked too late to next jump, so turned Sunny into the jump standard – fell onto the hard sand – ouch!) I had expierienced a couple of other ‘falls’ on the ‘fast’ Sunny with associated injuries, so I had to promise my employer that I wouldn’t jump anymore 
In late 1995, when I got my American Warmblood, ‘Rocki’ to ride Dressage and English Pleasure (I did jump her in low Hunter classes after she was backed & after I had trained her to ground drive with me running behind her, but again, after the previous falls and injuries from Sunny, it was better that I ride Dressage instead), she has been the best horse I have ever had. She will do anything & she is bomb-proof even when she was a baby.
Rocki is still with me at 15 years old and is still wonderful and in her prime (Clydesdales mature late – Rocki was actually lazy until she turned 10!). Just 4 years ago, I ‘learned how to ride correctly’ , i.e., how to really ride Dressage & give with the arms/elbows, meld with the horse, inside leg to outside rein, half-halt, etc.
Boy was I excited when I finally ‘felt’ this for longer than just a few minutes! I called my trainer, Kathy Daly of KDEquine Training, and excitedly told her that I now knew what she had been trying to get across to me for the past 5 years! So, instead of it taking me 45 minutes to warm myself up while confusing my horse by ‘hanging on the reins’ and not let him/her go forward INTO the reins, I can get on and have a great ride in 20 minutes, both I and my horse warmed up almost immediately. Rocki really ‘thanks’ me now… all I have to do is to ‘think’ a movement and Rocki will comply… ahhhh… as was said, a true horse fanatic.
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