Stages of development:

• Basic ground work based on natural horsemanship principles and techniques (mainly weanlings and yearlings). Ground work or play, establishes respectful and friendly partnership between a human and a horse. I strongly believe that the relationship should be established from the ground. In my training program, horses spend at least one week learning how to move right, left, forwards, backwards, up and down. The content of each session depends on where the horse is at and what he needs the most help with. I may use obstacles and patterns to help a horse learn how we can communicate with each other and therefor develop a learning frame of mind in the horse and its confidence.

• Starting under saddle (mainly 2-3 year olds). Starting a horse under saddle naturally follows after the ground work sessions. The most important aspects of starting a young horse, or re-naturalizing an older horse, are the horse's confidence and prior and proper preparation being in place. I strongly emphasize the importance of that to our clients! Just like the first two weeks of a horse's life, the first few rides are the most important ones. Depending on the horse, I may choose to first pony the horse with an experienced horse while carrying a saddle and/or use driving reins. In this stage the horse learns how to carry a saddle, a rider and usually learns to accept a bit.

• Establishing a solid foundation (mainly 2-3 year olds for any discipline). Since the first time I step into the stirrups I start building the basic foundation of a young horse. I expect our prospects to learn how to walk, trot, canter, stop and turn on a loose rein. I teach them a lateral flexion, hind quarter yields, front end yields, sideways yields and a back up. I am mainly looking for relaxation and respectful responses of the horse to my cues. I expect each horse to learn how to match my body energy, so that I do not have to rely on reins for control. The horse will also learn how to follow my suggestions to stay on circles, follow straight lines and stay on a clover leaf pattern. 

• Specializing in reining. Once the horse understands all the above, he is ready to start establishing a solid foundation. In this stage of training, I beco me more particular about the horse's balance, relaxation, impulsion, flexion and collection. Fundamentals for a specific discipline are being outlined here. This is a place where the horse's talent will make a difference in the ease of his trainability. Communication between the horse and the human is being refined here. At the end of this training segment, the horse should know how to carry itself balanced and collected on circles and straight lines, through transitions, and while picking up correct leads from the walk. 

•  Performance. I isolate each part of the reining pattern for our reining horses and teach them to combine those parts randomly, trying not to teach any assumptions. I recombine the whole pattern at our first show. It's the same for our working cow horses.    

• Maintaining a performance/show horse in great physical, mental and emotional health is our main priority. Cross training and trail riding are a huge part of this stage of training.