Kimberly Van Kampen Boyer
Story by Lauren Miró Photos by Abner Pedraza
Dressage Enthusiast Aims To Build Interest In The Sport With passions for dressage, philanthropy and Spanish horses, Kimberly Van Kampen Boyer has already made a splash in international dressage competition, sending a horse to the 2012 London Olympics and building a world-class covered arena in Wellington. Now, Boyer is hoping to open new doors for dressage and its next generation of riders, bringing dressage to the forefront of equestrian sport. “I see great things happening for dressage,” she said. “It’s growing, and I think it has a great future here in Wellington.” In her quest to promote dressage, Boyer financed the new Van Kampen Arena, which will host world-class competition as part of the Global Dressage Festival but also provide a covered space for use by local nonprofits during the summer heat. A native of Illinois, Boyer became smitten with dressage more than 20 years ago. “I grew up with horses,” she said. “But we weren’t an equestrian family. We had pleasure horses. I grew up riding, but not competing. I truly got into horses in 1995 or 1996.” Boyer owned a dressage farm in Michigan and began coming to Wellington in 1998 to look for high-
quality horses. In 1999, she sent her horses down to compete at the Winter Equestrian Festival for the first time. Then, in 2000, she and her husband, Fredric Boyer, purchased the old Revlon Polo farm and converted it into what is now Hampton Green Farm, a training facility for Boyer’s prizewinning Spanish horses. “It’s a community like nowhere else in the world,” she said of Wellington. “Everyone has horses in common, but it’s also a community of people who like to compete and who like to win… The draw becomes as much about the community as the horses. You come to this one place and meet people from all over the world, from all walks of life.” Boyer has been heavily involved with the equestrian community, serving on the board of the United States Equestrian Federation as well as president of the United States P.R.E. Association, which promotes the pure Spanish breed in the U.S. Her horse, Grandioso III, competed for Spain in the 2012 London Olympics with rider Daniel Martin Dockx at the reins, helping to promote the breed Boyer loves so much. Boyer is also a member of Wellington
Equestrian Partners — and the sole dressage rider among them. “I am a minor partner amongst some very giant and dedicated people, but they were all jumpers,” she said. “I still am the only dressage enthusiast among the partners.” Wellington Equestrian Partners Managing Partner Mark Bellissimo considers her perspective valuable. “Kimberly is a great partner of ours and an amazing woman from both a professional and philanthropic perspective,” Bellissimo said, noting that she is the single greatest contributor to the FTI Great Charity Challenge thus far. “She has given $100,000 each of the last two years, plus sponsored teams for $25,000. She has really gone above and beyond to try and energize philanthropy in the community.” Though dressage had a presence in Wellington for many years, it took a hiatus when the Winter Equestrian Festival’s jumping classes simply grew too large to host the shows, Boyer said. “Dressage left simply because WEF outgrew the sport,” she said. “They really couldn’t spare the space.” Boyer said she and Olympic dressage rider Robert Dover approached Wellington Equestrian Partners with
(Left) Kimberly Van Kampen Boyer loves dressage and breeds prizewinning Spanish horses. (Below) The Van Kampen Arena is named after Boyer’s father.
|wellington the the magazine| magazine| February February 2013 2013 |wellington
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