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Your Opportunity to Attend a Steve Bowers Clinic on Sunday March 4th
Cost: Advance registration $35/person (includes lunch)
Date: Sunday March 4th, 2007
To Register: Contact Don or Enid by phone 815-393-3445 or email
by Steve Bowers Why Come To A Clinic Like This? Many folks who use horses for high performance purposes have zero interest in knowing how a good horse is trained. They get their good horses by purchasing them that way. Although this simplistic approach seems to work for buying a car, the concept has its problems with living, relational animals like horses. Folks who can only get a good horse by buying it seem to spend an awful lot of time looking, trying, getting into trouble, rejecting; looking, trying, etc.… I have found that the level at which a horse performs is directly dependent on how much the driver knows. We’ve all seen the horse that works great with a skilled driver, but has nothing but trouble with someone else. Part of my definition of a skilled driver includes knowledge of rein handling and horse handling skills. Another, often overlooked aspect of being a skilled driver is having knowledge of how to progress a horse from being resistant to being respectful and responsive. In my definition of a skilled driver, there is included an awful lot of knowledge about how to train horses. At this clinic, you will see how horses can be progressed from resisting to responding in simple ways that relate directly to everyday interactions with horses that are being used on the street. What Will Happen At This Clinic? In a round pen setting, which is really great for spectators, various horses will be trained to do a few simple relational activities that significantly advance the higher qualities of the horses’ character. Instead of saying, "I’ll show you how to lunge a horse" or "how to long line", I would instead say that I’ll teach you: "How to get the horse to notice that you’re a great Leader." "How to teach the horse to treat you with respect." "How to get a horse from being resistant to being responsive." "How to teach the horse that you are not going to support his every step – the horse is expected to use his brain productively." "How to relationally tell the horse moment by moment when he is ‘doing the right thing’, or not." "What a pushy horse looks like, and how to get him to calm down with various activities." "How to take a horse that is spooky about things and teach him to act like he doesn’t care." "How to handle the reins so that your horse becomes more respectful of the reins instead of less: when starting, turning, going and stopping." Instead of training on just one horse, I will try to get to as many different horses as possible during the day, so that the spectators can see as many different horse personalities and as many different stages of training as possible. This clinic will involve a certain amount of me lecturing and demonstrating the techniques, but will also allow plenty of time for the spectators, who are up close to the round pen, to ask questions or make comments. What Is Steve Bowers’ Training Style? Inquiring minds will want to know, "Is this guy coming at us from some style of riding or driving that I don’t agree with? Is this Western? English? Combined Driving? Hitch Horse? Dressage? Saddle Seat? Military? Hunter Jumper? Amish?" To put it simply, the answer is "None of the above!" This is probably very different from anything you’ve ever seen before! I’ve tried a lot of different training techniques over the years, and have settled on the fact that I find natural training techniques to be the most meaningful to the horse, and most likely to produce the kind of horse that everyone wants. If you’ve seen "Natural" training techniques that simply look silly, let me say right here that I have, too. I promise not to do anything pointless or ineffective as I show you how to relate to the horse in ways that are deeply significant because they are relational and relevant. When horses see you as a capable, relational, relevant leader, they change their difficult and unpredictable behaviors into calm, predictable and respectful behavior. What Is The Goal Of This Clinic? Steve would like the participants at this clinic to come away with one or more of the following realizations: "Horses are smarter than I thought." "Horse training is easier than I thought." "I’d rather train my own horses than send them out for abuse from someone who knows less than I do!" "I’d rather train my own horse than buy one that I don’t know anything about how it was trained." "Time spent training horses is time well spent." "Horse training is better than watching television!" "Finally, I understand the whole picture of how to train a driving horse!" |
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