06/12/2026
Ray Hunt wrote "We expect horses to go from kindergarten to the eighth grade, to high school, and to college without enough time, preparation or consideration for his thoughts and feelings. We often don't even get him in a learning frame of mind before we begin to train him. We don't even have him relaxed and confident, where he can sit in class and just listen. We skip all that preparation because we are so superior, or neglectful, or lazy. Because we haven't prepared ourselves to recognize the horse's feelings.
You must learn to realize the slightest change, the smallest try that a horse makes. You know and he knows you know. When you feel him start to position himself to turn around or to back up, or whatever, recognize this so you can reward his effort and build on it. Don't make the horse do all the work. He shouldn't have to figure you out and learn to get out of your way to get things done."
Our training program focuses on this fundamental Ray Hunt presents and I can tell you from experience it works.
I constantly preach that no horse is the same - because they aren't. When your horses come to me for training, they get a couple days to settle into their new surroundings, during these days I watch them, see how they react to new sounds, smells, horses, noises, equipment etc. Before we make it into the round pen I have a general idea of what I'm working with and I adjust my program to work with them.
I take pride in my ability and discipline in myself - every horse has the same expectation, the same rules and the same boundaries. How I approach these fundamentals is dependent on the horse.
My training programs are focused on filling in the gaps - making sure every horse passes every grade so that when they leave my programs they are set up to succeed.
