Founder of Florida Wild Horse Rescue Center Recalls Lifelong Love of Horses

Share

Diane Delano—founder of the Wild Horse Rescue Center, a Webster, Florida facility that rescues, rehabilitates, and finds new homes for wild horses—recalls in a “Talking Animals” interview growing up amidst a family of horse lovers, and she started riding at age three.

This was in the Catskills, where Delano says, she was frequently playing outside and tending to various wild animals, including baby woodchuck named Peanut. A few years after the family moved to Central Florida, a pivotal thing happened for Delano when she was 13: Her father gave her a horse, named Raindrop, who went on to be part of Delano’s life for 34 years.

It’s hard to imagine someone whose youth—whose childhood, really–more directly foreshadowed their life’s work. Especially once Delano encountered her first wild horse. She describes her longstanding relationship with the Bureau of Land Management, which includes Delano being selected by the BLM to serve as a Compliance Officer.

She discusses the Wild Horse Rescue Center, both by the numbers (currently, 64 horses across 42 acres), as well as some specific horse residents, past and present, and how a new brand of volunteer—residents of The Villages, a nearby, noted retirement community—stepped up and stepped in when Covid-associated restrictions forced suspension of the Center’s major International Volunteer Program.

Leave a Reply

  • (will not be published)

XHTML: You can use these tags: <a href="" title=""> <abbr title=""> <acronym title=""> <b> <blockquote cite=""> <cite> <code> <del datetime=""> <em> <i> <q cite=""> <s> <strike> <strong>

You may also like

Former and current Florida legislators talk term limits at Tampa political forum

Listen: Over 30 years ago, Florida voters amended the state’s...

A man in a blue collared shirt, with rectangle glasses and a black hat. He has a short beard and is talking into a radio microphone with his left hand raised like a cobra.
Talking Florida’s rule changes on mushrooms and weed, with a side of strip clubs, too

For three sessions now, Carlos Hermida, who owns two hemp...

The Scoop: Fri. May 16, 2025, Tampa Bay and Florida headlines by WMNF

Florida municipalities are now forbidden from fluoridating water after Gov....

death penalty florida
Glen Rogers is Florida’s fifth execution this year; the Florida Conference of Catholic Bishops objects

The Florida Conference of Catholic Bishops has repeatedly asked DeSantis...

Ways to listen

WMNF is listener-supported. That means we don't advertise like a commercial station, and we're not part of a university.

Ways to support

WMNF volunteers have fun providing a variety of needed services to keep your community radio station alive and kickin'.

Colors of Jazz
Colors of Jazz