I enjoy working with horses and people using what I call the French Natural approach. For many years I traveled around the west riding and making a study of the horse through the lens of natural horsemanship. About twelve years ago I was on my way home from a long trip to Wyoming where I worked starting young colts and restarting “problem” horses, when I began to wonder what else was out there that could really help me with these horses that have physical problems and therefore a lot of mental stress. I had developed a quiet way of working with the horses and I could see that there was a new door opening up inside of me.

I came home and began searching for a way to further my work with horses. I became fascinated by the work of Nuno Oliveira and his students. Over time I searched out a number of his students and spent years redeveloping my training program to include the classical exercises for building a dynamic horse. The root of these exercises is the old classical French school of Francois Robichon de la Gueriniere and Francois Baucher, among others. These methods were developed to relieve the horse of any physical tension or restriction in its body in order to build a balanced horse that was light to the hand, free and forward and supple beyond any previous measure. Mr. Oliveira took the older classical French methodology and added a great deal of relaxation and finesse to it. In his lifetime he advanced the French classical view and passed it on to only a few of his dedicated students.

Studying the French classical approach redefined lightness for me. Lightness is something that flows through the entire body of the horse, reaching a potential I could have hardly dreamed before. Through the early work with young horses, starting them without stress and with a great deal of understanding, I introduce the classical exercises taught to me by a few great horse men and women, who were former students of Mr. Oliveira. In this early work, I blend together both my natural understanding of the horse with the understanding of how to prepare a horse to polish its natural balance through classical exercises. This is now the basis for my entire program and how I advance horses both mentally and physically.