| Photo: Kim As A Horse-Crazy Youth
~The Horse-Training Dream~
Kim graduated from High School in Wyoming. A life-time horse fanatic, and determined to train horses as a career, she bypassed college in favor of pursuing 'the horse-training dream'.
Because of the cold temperatures and snow in the winter, this dream was not successful while she lived in Wyoming.
So she moved to Redding, California and from 1997-2002 Kim operated her own horse-training business.
Some people (especially native Californians) may ask, 'Why Redding, CA?'
Kim's answer is, 'Why not?!'
Actually, Kim had relatives who lived there, and that was the reason she chose Redding, and California -- she knew next to nothing about either one. Having heard of California's mild winters (who hasn't!), it seemed like the best place to try to start the business. So when relatives invited Kim to stay with them for a few months while she tested the 'horse-training waters', she packed up and headed West..
Kim did not own an arena or her own facilities, but instead traveled to wherever the horse was in order to train it -- usually at its owner's property. (This turned out to be a key reason that Kim got such outstanding results from the horses she trained.)Because most of her clients didn't have such luxuries as arenas and barns, Kim trained the horses in any available area:
- Grassy spots in the 'V' between two subdivision roadsround pens -- not always the nice little pipe-pens you see, but often pens made of all kinds of materials, and not even technically round!
- Pastures, corrals
- Rectangular pens on sloping ground
Training horses in these conditions was extremely difficult. Especially when added to other outside factors. Notably, one example occured during a training session with a filly Kim was saddle-breaking. The next-door neighbors lit a bonfire! But that's just part of the experience!
The other part of training horses in this type of environment is...
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|  ~ The Great Outdoors! ~
Yes, in addition to training horses on uneven ground and in areas made of varied and interesting fencing materials (if there was fencing), Kim had to deal with perhaps her biggest challenge:
Weather!
Mother Nature played a huge role in Kim's work-life.
Like the steadfast mailman who delivers the mail in rain, hail, sleet, or snow, Kim likewise trained in all kinds of weather conditions. Only large amounts of lightning would cause her to cut short or cancel a training session. (Hey, I never said I wasn't crazy!)
Living in Northern California, Kim was thankfully saved from having to train horses in sleet and snow and freezing temperatures (which she had to do while she lived in Wyoming).
However, she wasn't spared the 100*-110*F heat in the summer, nor the approximately 30-60 inches of rain in the winter. While those conditions were definitely not fun, it was physically possible to train in them, so Kim did. (Hey, I had to eat whether it was nice weather or not!)
Training in the rain itself wasn't so bad -- but we know what rain means: MUD!
Kim invariably trained all winter in mud -- anywhere from a half-inch to two feet of it. One thing to be said about Kim's horses -- they weren't afraid to get dirty -- and neither was Kim! |
 ~ Training Technique ~
Kim did not grow up on a ranch. She received her 1st horse from her parents for her 11th birthday, along with a couple years' (all told) worth of riding lessons. She got jobs working in stables and ranches through her teens, and started her own horse-training business at age 21.
After those riding lessons and on-the-job experience in her teens, Kim's training techniques were mostly self-taught -- the result of reading lots of books, and trial and error. Her big focus was Dressage -- the basis for every type of riding because the emphasis is on correctness of movement, just as ballet dancers learn correctness of human movement. Dressage is like ballet for horses.
Kim trained horses in: Halter/Saddle Breaking, Reining, Dressage, Jumping, English/Western Pleasure -- as well as some Team Penning and pretend Barrel Racing for fun.
Because Kim traveled to the horse, she worked by the hour, and most of her clients had her train the horses 1-2 times/week. Usually she trained each horse for 1-1.5 hours at a time. (It was a jam-packed hour, too. Catching, saddling, training, and putting away the horse makes an hour fly by.) Because Kim trained in such difficult environmental conditions, and combined with the short amounts of time she had to train the horses and the relatively long time-intervals between most horse training sessions, Kim had to have a training technique that got positive results in a short amount of time, made sense to the horses so they would remember the lessons, and above all -- made the horses safe to work with!h
To that end, since Kim was (and is) more concerned with safety and good results than in being politically correct, she combined whatever training techniques worked for her -- whether they were English or Western -- and created her own training technique that she has not yet seen copied. The gist of this technique is that the training starts from the ground-up, meaning good halter manners. Then she progresses to longing horses on a longe line (even in a round pen); riding/training the horse in Dressage in a curb bit -- with contact on the bit -- using any type of saddle or riding bareback; and wearing spurs with rowels. (The exceptions to the curb bit and spurs are on very green horses just being saddle-broke.)
Kim's training methods are non-violent and very effective. They had to be, because 90% of the time, the horse owners watched the training sessions! (After all, Kim trained the horses at the owners' properties.) This gave Kim a good chance to teach her techniques to the owners, and help them one-on-one with their horses at home -- in the very same places they normally rode.
While most other horses Kim saw trained only gave about 30% of their potential, Kim achieved 100% performance from every horse. (That is, 100% of what the horse was capable of at the time of training, not it's life-long potential).
 Kim successfully trained horses other people could not, and in fairly short amounts of time. Training horses for the general public and going from property-to-property, she successfully trained all ages, genders, and breeds of horses. While some breeds had more talent in certain areas, Kim did not favor a particular breed or gender of horse. Her favorite saying was: 'If it has four legs and a tail, it can move correctly, behave itself, and perform well.'
Each step the horses took had to be correct, because they were often ridden in mud and/or on uneven, rocky, or slippery ground. One misstep would have meant a fall, so that was the ultimate criteria by which Kim judged the correctness of the horses' movements and her techniques. That, and the horses' good behavior -- or lack thereof! |
 ~ Into the Online Future ~
To tie this all together...
After six full years of being beaten around by the sun, wind, rain, and horses, Kim had a brainwave and realized that she does not want to do this until she is 50 years old!
With less than a dozen falls and even fewer incidents of being bucked off in all her years of training horses, Kim decided to not wait until she was injured and arthritic to start a new career.
Sooo.... Kim found she has a fascination for computers, and became a web-geek. She has designed several websites, and now shares her in-depth horse-training knowledge with her clients through online chat and email!
(Thank God, she can type fast.) |
