Latest / The Touch of a Mustang / From No Horse Experience to Training Mustangs Worldwide with Grace Thompson | Episode 69

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From No Horse Experience to Training Mustangs Worldwide with Grace Thompson | Episode 69 · The Touch of a Mustang

• 0:00
  We'll put you through college, whatever you want to do, but
• 0:02
  this is going to be really hard on your body.
• 0:04
  It's going to be really hard emotionally.
• 0:06
  It's a little bit lonely. And I was like, no, I want to do
• 0:09
  it. You can't go to college to be a
• 0:11
  horse trainer. You know, you have to get that
• 0:13
  real world experience and you have to work with people that
• 0:16
  understand how how you understand things that can teach
• 0:20
  you the way you can understand. Not everybody learns and teaches
• 0:25
  the same way. So sometimes you got to move
• 0:27
  around a little bit to find that good fit.
• 0:29
  I find the horses started at Liberty are a lot more confident
• 0:33
  once they understand that you are offering guidance, you're
• 0:36
  offering partnership, you're not trying to hurt them.
• 0:40
  The halter, all that other stuff comes really easy.
• 0:43
  She wants them as wild as possible.
• 0:45
  So most of the horses that I sent over there, we maybe can
• 0:50
  touch them like right between their eyes from in front of
• 0:53
  them. But generally they're they're
• 0:55
  wild when they get there. So we get them halter broke, you
• 1:00
  know, friendly at liberty, halter broke leading, loading
• 1:03
  and tying. They learn verbal cues.
• 1:06
  I had a horse that I taught to target my hand.
• 1:09
  Like he was so afraid of everything that like he could,
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  but he could focus on one thing at a time.
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  So I taught him like to target my hand and I could move my hand
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  and his head would go that way. So that was interesting.
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  So it's they basically are just gentle enough that we can lead
• 1:27
  them onto a trailer, off the trailer into a barn, and then
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  back onto the trailer to the airport, into their little jet
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  box containers. So it's three horses per
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  container. When the trainers get them home
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  in Germany, some of the trainers think they'll be able to get
• 1:44
  right up to them and pet them and touch them.
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  No, they start over. A lot of these horses end up in
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  just not good situations. If somebody doesn't care that
• 1:54
  they might end up in a kill pen or they might end up back and
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  holding, or they might end up in an abusive home, somebody has to
• 2:02
  care. Somebody has to run in between
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  for them. They're kind of a novelty there.
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  The Europeans love the American West and John Wayne and wild
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  horses. It's such a privilege to them to
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  have one of our horses and we've lost that here.
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  It's our dime a dozen. If you don't like the one you
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  have, just get another one. Like it's so cool to work with
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  people that really value them and see them the way that I see
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  them. I have always had a passion and
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  a soft spot for our veterans. I think that they are
• 2:35
  underappreciated and I'm taking they're not taking care of in
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  our society. They're literally laying down
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  their lives for our country and then ending up homeless and
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  struggling with mental health and suicide.
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  We're a military family. We're 5 generations military or
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  6 now, I think. My dad's a veteran, my grandpa's
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  a veteran. I've got brothers in the Army
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  and the National Guard. We are a military family.
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  We support our veterans. So I think that horses really
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  make a difference in people's mental health.
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  I've seen it in my life and I don't have war trauma, but we
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  all experience trauma in our lives and horses can heal that.
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  Horses can make a difference. There are healers on this planet
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  with the power to soften the suffering of mankind if they
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  have remained in the recesses of the world, abused, discarded and
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  labeled as trash. This is the touch of a Mustang.
• 3:33
  I am your host, Shalise Clough, and I'm here to tell the story
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  of wild horses, Mustangs, and the humans who are discovering
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  and sharing their gifts while working to protect their
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  well-being and preserve their spirit so this divine power
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  won't be lost. Join us on this quest with the
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  Wild Mustang. Grace, thank you so much for
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  being here at the Touch of a Mustang podcast.
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  Thank you for having me. I'm super excited to chat with
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  you and see what we get into today.
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  Absolutely. Can you give everyone that is in
• 4:09
  the audience right now a quick introduction of yourself and
• 4:14
  tell us a little bit about what you do?
• 4:16
  I'm Grace Thompson. I am a 25 year old cult starter
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  Mustang dentaler. I'm based out of East Tennessee
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  and I work with mostly Mustangs, but also, you know, quarters and
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  other breeds. I've competed in Mustang
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  Makeover since I was 17. I think I did my first youth
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  challenge and got hooked on that, did another youth
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  challenge and then went adult. I've worked for lots of
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  incredible trainers who have poured into me and helped make
• 4:44
  me the horseman that I am today. I work with some friends over in
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  Europe who import the Mustangs for their own Mustang Makeover,
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  so they do Mustang Makeover Germany.
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  So I prep those horses for their flight and their journey to
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  Europe. So that's really an interesting
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  thing. And then I also have worked in
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  New Zealand with a Kelly Wilson. Tell us about how you first got
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  started or involved with horses. Where did that begin?
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  Yeah. So I as a child, I wanted to
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  train large marine life. I wanted to train orcas and
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  dolphins and seals. That was, it was so fascinating
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  to me, that predator to predator communication.
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  But as I grew older and we moved further and further away from
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  where that would be realistic for me, I started exploring
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  other options and horses became the most viable large animal for
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  me to work with. I knew nothing when I first
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  started working with horses, Like clueless, no idea how to do
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  body language. I could barely ride.
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  And we worked with a trainer who lived up the road and was like,
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  like these kids, you know, who taught us a lot of what we knew
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  growing up. And then they got Mustangs in
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  for the Mustang makeover. And I was so fascinated by him
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  gentling these wild animals like they were totally wild.
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  And I was like, I think, I think I can do that.
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  As a kid, I was like, I can do that.
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  So they meant for me through through my first makeover.
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  They really, it wouldn't have been possible without their
• 6:27
  mentorship because I really was starting from scratch.
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  I read all the books that I can get my hands on, any DVDs,
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  anything that I thought might help me understand what I was
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  dealing with. Did my first makeover, totally
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  loved it, had a great experience.
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  Wanted to do another one and my mentor was like, OK, this one I
• 6:49
  think you should do kind of on your own to see where you're
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  actually at. It was so hard without as much
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  help. It really showed me that I
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  didn't know a lot. I had a lot to learn, but it was
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  again, a great experience, good time competing.
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  I was approached by a couple of trainers at that challenge who
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  asked if I would come work for them, and I had to pick one or
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  the other. So I picked the other and they
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  mentored me through my first adult makeover.
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  So even still up to that point, I was pretty like just doing the
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  best I could as a kid, learning anything that anybody would show
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  me, riding with trainers that offered me a place, just trying
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  to learn as I went. But I knew pretty quick off the
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  bat that I wanted to do this as a career.
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  So it's, I don't know, the Mustangs kind of just suck you
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  in like that. Like you do a couple and then
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  you just fall in love with the process.
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  You fall in love with who you become through the process.
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  As a teenager, I was very easily frustrated.
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  I was a middle child, you know that, you know, learning your
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  place, finding your position, finding your voice.
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  I feel like the Mustangs really helped me become who I am today.
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  I think I would still be stuck in that, you know, frustrated
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  teen phase if I hadn't have been pushed through by by some
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  incredible horses and even trainers as well.
• 8:17
  Yeah, they are definitely good for helping you see areas where
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  you can improve in your life. That's absolutely, absolutely.
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  Once you decided on horses versus marine life or other
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  large mammals, did you ever look back or was it something that it
• 8:32
  just felt right to go with the horses?
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  I definitely feel like it just felt right.
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  There's definitely still like a place in my heart for large
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  marine life. And I definitely see myself at
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  some point, you know, if an opportunity ever presented
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  itself to do like an internship or learn more about those
• 8:51
  animals. I do have a soft side, a soft
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  side for wildlife, but I really never looked back.
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  I'd never seen myself doing anything but working with horses
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  and especially wild horses. That really meets a need for me
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  to help these wild animals that have ended up in a situation
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  they didn't choose to get into a better situation.
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  So I think that meets the need for me for helping our wildlife,
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  even though they aren't classified as protected
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  wildlife. But yeah, I never really looked
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  back once. I just, I like, woke up one day
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  and came downstairs and told my parents, like, I'm going to be a
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  horse trainer. Like, I'm going to do it.
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  And they were like, oh, please, please pick anything else.
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  Like, we'll put you through college, like whatever you want
• 9:35
  to do. But like, this is going to be
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  really hard on your body. It's going to be really hard
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  emotionally. It's a little bit lonely.
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  And I was like, no, I want to do it.
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  Like, I'm doing it. And they supported me every day
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  since they, you know, if I needed to be dropped off
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  somewhere as a, you know, high school kid, they would take me.
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  If I wanted to do a clinic, my dad would take me to a clinic.
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  If I needed to be hauled to a show, my mom would take me to a
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  show. Like they after that initial,
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  like, Are you sure? They supported me all the way.
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  So yeah, I've. Got none of your family were
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  horse people before this. We were first all jumped into
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  it. Yes, my sister and I, we rode
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  growing up, but again, like we were pretty.
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  We were pretty ignorant. Like we just rode for fun, but
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  yeah, we were first. Yet everybody kind of assumes
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  that we were born into horses. We were not.
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  We were raised around horses, but like my parents were
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  absolutely not horse people, so. Yeah, it is interesting because
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  I think there's a misconception about there that you kind of out
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  there that you kind of need to be born into it and a lot of
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  people got into it as teenagers or adults.
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  It's pretty cool, yeah. Yes, it is incredible.
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  You definitely have to kind of make your own way.
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  I think even the people that are born into it have to make their
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  own way, make their own name, you know, so.
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  Yeah, once you decided I'm going to do this as my profession, I'm
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  all in. How did you start building on
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  that? How did you start moving towards
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  that? So pretty quick once I decided
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  that's what I wanted to do, you know, we invested in books and,
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  you know, DVD curriculum that I studied myself.
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  And then right after that is when I started with the trainer
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  with my first Mustang. I convinced my, it took me a
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  little while to convince my parents that a Mustang was the
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  best route. They bought me a quarter horse
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  and I was like, that's great. But I really like, I want a
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  Mustang. Yeah.
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  So I prayed about this Mustang, like various, like exact, like
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  basically set got a mail order of the exact horse I wanted.
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  And I literally got that exact horse at pickup once I convinced
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  my parents. So I worked with the trainer,
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  the first trainer for the 1st 2 Mustangs and then I had the
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  second trainer pick me up at the second makeover.
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  They were like we, you know, we watched you compete the year
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  before, we saw you compete this year.
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  We really want to like you seem ambitious.
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  We want to help you. Which was just honestly them
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  being very kind because I didn't, I could barely ride.
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  So they, I worked with them for six months or five months and
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  then pretty quick after that I went to another trainer to work
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  on some like liberty stuff. I was so fascinated by liberty
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  horsemanship because to me that was the closest thing to my
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  understanding of like the marine life.
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  Like they, you know, the clicker training and the targeting and
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  the marking, it was the liberty is the closest thing to that.
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  So always so fascinated by the liberty.
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  So I got in with some liberty trainers as quick as I could.
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  Yeah, it's just kind of been like one person after the next
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  that was willing to pour into a young kid.
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  So I've, I've worked for a lot of trainers and it's, it's just
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  kind of like that when you decide you can't go to college
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  to be a horse trainer, you know, you have to get that real world
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  experience and you have to work with people that understand how
• 13:12
  how you understand things that can teach you the way you can
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  understand. Not everybody learns and teaches
• 13:19
  the same way. So sometimes you got to move
• 13:21
  around a little bit to find that good fit.
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  So yeah, I just have, since I got out of the youth competitors
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  and into adult, I've always just, hey, can I come ride with
• 13:33
  you for a couple of weeks or a month or six months, whoever
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  needed a little help. And that's it just kind of took
• 13:41
  off from there. So, and I'm still learning, I
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  still will go and you know, if somebody will call and be like,
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  hey, I have a spot. Do you want to come ride?
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  Like I throw a couple horses in the truck and go because you
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  always have to grab those learning opportunities when you
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  can. So, yeah, that's great advice
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  for someone who's wanting to get into it from, you know, not
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  doing it at all. It just kind of fills that pool,
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  yeah. So tell us a little bit about
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  how your methods and your journey with liberty have
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  evolved over time. Yeah, so I remember the first
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  makeover that I went and watched.
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  I saw I didn't even know liberty was a thing, and I was running
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  an errand for. I was helping.
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  I was like grooming for a competitor.
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  I was like, this was my very first experience and I was
• 14:31
  running to grab something and I heard them announce double Dan
• 14:34
  horsemanship in the arena. And I was like, oh, let me peek
• 14:37
  around the corner and see like these guys seem like a big deal.
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  Let me see what's going on. And I'll never forget watching.
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  I don't remember which one it was, but one of them ran out to
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  the arena bridal list and like did the sliding stop and he's I
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  was like, Oh my goodness, like that's incredible.
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  And then the other one came out on foot doing liberty with
• 14:54
  another horse. And I was so fascinated by the
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  fact that they were performing in front of such a large crowd
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  with no bridle, no halter, no lead rope.
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  And I just remember being like, Oh my goodness, like that.
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  I have to learn how to do that. That's so incredible.
• 15:12
  And then the other people that inspired me through that are
• 15:14
  Stacy Westfall. Everybody's seen that freestyle
• 15:17
  of her coming out bareback and bridal list.
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  And then Luke Gingrich, I'd found him around and seen him
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  doing some, you know, bareback and bridal list and Liberty, you
• 15:26
  know, 2 jumping lead changes. And I was like, I have to
• 15:30
  understand that. So my first mentor at the time,
• 15:34
  Carrie, was like, you know, that's a lot of work.
• 15:38
  You're going to have to be really dedicated.
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  Here's some resources. Here's like she handed me to
• 15:42
  Liberty Whips and was like, if you can figure this out, like
• 15:45
  I'll help you as much as I can. So she really encouraged me to
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  dive into that passion. It literally lit like fire in my
• 15:54
  soul. And I just been in love with
• 15:57
  Liberty ever since. So I studied all of double dance
• 16:00
  material. I did clinics and I started
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  working with, I went out to work for Hannah Catalino to learn how
• 16:07
  to gentle horses at Liberty. So we gentled, I think 10 wild
• 16:12
  horses at Liberty, which was remarkable because you have to
• 16:15
  your timing has to be so on point because they can just
• 16:19
  leave anytime. But it's really cool to see that
• 16:22
  connection genuinely form versus putting a halter and leader up
• 16:27
  on at pickup and just immediately starting that halter
• 16:30
  breaking process. It's so cool to see how the
• 16:33
  horses blossom from each perspective.
• 16:38
  Yeah. Does that kind of answer the
• 16:39
  question? That's kind of how I got
• 16:42
  interested in Liberty. So yeah, is that.
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  And and that's really the methods that you use now in your
• 16:52
  own organization. So it just depends on what I'm
• 16:56
  doing. So Ioffer cult starting tune ups
• 16:59
  and Mustang generally. I try to use as much liberty as
• 17:04
  possible. Obviously some trouble horses
• 17:07
  need, you know, a clearer answer.
• 17:10
  I always say like a halter and leader is like asking them a
• 17:13
  question one out of 10. Starting them at liberty is more
• 17:17
  like asking a question one out of 100 or asking a number one
• 17:20
  out of 100. Give me a number one out of 100.
• 17:22
  They have a lot more wrong. They give you the wrong answer a
• 17:25
  lot more before they get the right answer, if that makes
• 17:27
  sense versus a halter. Give me a number one out of 10.
• 17:31
  They're going to figure out I should face A and walk that way
• 17:34
  a lot sooner than at liberty. But I find the horses started at
• 17:39
  liberty are a lot more confident.
• 17:42
  They once they understand that you are offering guidance,
• 17:45
  you're offering partnership, you're not trying to hurt them,
• 17:49
  the halter, you know, all that other stuff comes really easy.
• 17:54
  So for my Germany project with these Mustangs, and they all get
• 17:59
  started at Liberty because a lot of them come from bigger holding
• 18:02
  facilities and they're genuinely terrified of people.
• 18:05
  When they get to me, they are so terrified of people that I just
• 18:10
  stand in a corner and just like kind of work them with my body
• 18:14
  language, like in a corner of the round pen.
• 18:16
  They're running just really scared.
• 18:18
  And then over time I get to where they can approach me.
• 18:21
  Sometimes I can touch them. We can't actually halter them at
• 18:25
  Liberty for this project. They have to be haltered from a
• 18:29
  shoot, but they they get to where they trust people a lot
• 18:33
  better than just run them through, put a halter on them.
• 18:36
  Let's get them halter broke. There's definitely a time and a
• 18:39
  place for that. And I'm not knocking people that
• 18:41
  do it that way. And sometimes we have to do it
• 18:44
  that way. Sometimes you have a horse
• 18:45
  that's injured or is going to hurt themselves if they have too
• 18:49
  many options, but I prefer to give them, I, I want them to
• 18:53
  choose to be on my team versus you have to do this right now.
• 18:59
  So and I, most of my personal horses do some form of liberty.
• 19:05
  They at least like understand, you know, you can choose, you
• 19:09
  can choose to come, you can choose to go, you know?
• 19:13
  So yeah, I I use it as much as possible because I just love the
• 19:16
  fruit of that in my horses. Yeah, that's great.
• 19:21
  And I think it's also a great point to just note that
• 19:24
  different things are going to work in different situations
• 19:26
  depending on the goals and needs.
• 19:28
  And so it's important to not just get stuck on one Ave. that
• 19:32
  everything else is wrong. There are a lot of good methods
• 19:35
  and ideas out there depending on on what's needed between the
• 19:38
  horse and the person and the situation and all that.
• 19:41
  Absolutely. Tell us more about the Mustang
• 19:45
  makeover in Germany. I didn't even know that they did
• 19:48
  that, so that's really interesting.
• 19:51
  So yeah, tell us kind of what you do and then where the horses
• 19:54
  go after they leave their time with you.
• 19:57
  Yes, so I, I love this project. So five years ago, this is our
• 20:02
  fifth year doing it. Five years ago I had a BLM Rep
• 20:08
  call me. And they were like, hey, we know
• 20:10
  this lady in Germany that imports lastings and the person
• 20:16
  that was doing it for her just, you know, like, retired and
• 20:20
  she's looking for somebody to replace her.
• 20:23
  Would that be something you're interested in?
• 20:24
  And I was like, well, tell me like the details.
• 20:27
  And he was like, oh, you have six months and as many horses as
• 20:31
  you want to do and as much time. And if you need more than six
• 20:34
  months, that's great. They pay you just amazing.
• 20:37
  And they're going to go to Europe and it's going to be
• 20:39
  great. And I was like, oh, yeah, six
• 20:42
  months. Like I can get them so gentle in
• 20:43
  six months. Give the lady my number.
• 20:46
  So she calls me and she's like, yeah, this is what we need.
• 20:51
  You have six weeks. And we do 25 horses at a time.
• 20:54
  And I was like, oh, he's six months.
• 20:57
  And she's like, it's. Not the same story.
• 20:59
  It's not the same. She.
• 21:00
  Said no, it's six weeks and they have to be.
• 21:04
  At the time we were doing like the TIP program, which was the
• 21:06
  trainer incentive program. So we would get paid an
• 21:10
  incentive to halt or break, pick up all four feet, lead load and
• 21:13
  tie the horses. So they were doing an
• 21:15
  international incentive where they could lead, load, tie.
• 21:20
  We didn't have to pick their feet up.
• 21:21
  They don't have to be touched. So she wants them as wild as
• 21:26
  possible. So most of the horses that I
• 21:29
  send over there, we maybe can touch them like right between
• 21:33
  their eyes from in front of them.
• 21:35
  But generally they're they're wild when they get there.
• 21:39
  So we get them halter broke, you know, friendly at liberty,
• 21:42
  halter broke leading loading and time.
• 21:46
  They learn verbal cues. I had a horse that I taught to
• 21:49
  target my hand. Like he was so afraid of
• 21:52
  everything that like he could, but he could focus on one thing
• 21:55
  at a time. So I taught him like to target
• 21:57
  my hand and I could move my hand and his head would go that way.
• 22:02
  So that was interesting. So it's, they basically are just
• 22:07
  gentle enough that we can lead them onto a trailer, off the
• 22:11
  trailer into a barn, and then back onto the trailer to the
• 22:15
  airport, into their little jet box containers.
• 22:19
  So it's three horses per container.
• 22:21
  So you load one horse on the left, one horse on the right,
• 22:24
  one horse in the middle. They get hay.
• 22:26
  I water them every two hours on the flight and then they get to
• 22:32
  Frankfurt, Germany and rest for the night.
• 22:35
  And then we load them into the trainers trailers.
• 22:37
  When the trainers get them home in Germany, they're like,
• 22:40
  they're wild. Like the, some of the trainers
• 22:42
  think they'll be able to get right up to him and pet them and
• 22:45
  touch them. No, like they're wild.
• 22:47
  They start over. Once you get the rope, you can
• 22:50
  leave them anywhere. They will follow you anywhere.
• 22:53
  But they're not like they're not friendly, if that makes sense.
• 22:58
  And that's they want that accurate like wild horse
• 23:01
  challenge. So here we have the 100 day
• 23:04
  challenge and our horses are wild when we start them and we
• 23:07
  have to do all of the training. Obviously they can't ship
• 23:11
  completely feral horses. They do have to be somewhat
• 23:15
  manageable. But if they get them over there
• 23:18
  and let them sit for two days, like they're pretty feral.
• 23:22
  So they get this year they have I think almost six months.
• 23:26
  Usually it's more like 4 to get them gentle, ride them, show
• 23:31
  them. They do a lot of liberty there.
• 23:34
  Liberty's really big in Europe. So they're they're challenges.
• 23:39
  They're always like the stuff they get their horses doing is
• 23:41
  amazing. And we send a lot of really
• 23:44
  difficult horses there. We work with a lot of kill pen
• 23:48
  horses, a lot of like long term holding horses, last strike
• 23:53
  horses, horses that trainers here have deemed worthless and
• 23:59
  will never be worth anything or dangerous or difficult.
• 24:03
  They find a place there and because they do so much liberty,
• 24:06
  I think they're their approach is so much more slow and gentle.
• 24:11
  Those horses thrive. So we send as many as as we can
• 24:16
  physically fly. We send over there because they
• 24:20
  have such a better life, I think like they get a second chance.
• 24:24
  They get to try again, and they deserve that.
• 24:28
  Some of these horses, it's not their fault that they're
• 24:30
  difficult. They've been gathered up,
• 24:33
  separated from their families, sitting and holding, you know,
• 24:37
  worked and holding passed around Once they've been adopted, You
• 24:41
  know, some of these horses really have had a hard life
• 24:44
  before they're ever even gentled.
• 24:47
  So I think to me, it's important to get as many and good homes as
• 24:52
  possible, like good permanent homes.
• 24:54
  They deserve that. So my contact over there, Silky
• 24:59
  does a great job making sure these horses end up in the best
• 25:02
  case scenario. She always knows where they are.
• 25:06
  If the owners have to sell them, she gets them back and finds
• 25:09
  them a good home. Like these horses don't slip
• 25:11
  through the cracks in Europe. So to me, it's important when
• 25:15
  people call me and say, hey, I have this horse that's
• 25:18
  difficult. I'm like, just bring it.
• 25:19
  Just bring it to me like I will. I'll work with it and help it
• 25:22
  find a good home. Because a lot of these horses
• 25:26
  end up in just not good situations.
• 25:28
  If somebody doesn't care that they might end up in a kill pen
• 25:32
  or they might end up back and holding or they might end up in
• 25:36
  an abusive home, somebody has to care.
• 25:39
  Somebody has to kind of run in between for them.
• 25:41
  So thankfully we have an Ave. to move these horses to faith good
• 25:46
  homes. So that's kind of the long steal
• 25:48
  and both sides of it. She does.
• 25:50
  We do the makeover horses and then we do private like private
• 25:54
  home horses. So some of those kill pen
• 25:58
  horses, those tougher horses, they go to private homes or they
• 26:02
  go to trainers over there who train them and then they go to
• 26:05
  private homes. But all of the horses for her
• 26:09
  makeover event are straight from holding, like haven't been
• 26:13
  handled. They all have the same level of
• 26:15
  handling. They're gentle by us here.
• 26:19
  Again, horsemanship. And then they go straight to the
• 26:21
  trainers in Europe. So that's kind of the long spiel
• 26:26
  of it. But yeah, it's an incredible
• 26:29
  program. I love working with them.
• 26:30
  I think their mission is so powerful and important and it
• 26:34
  brings so much awareness to our horses here.
• 26:37
  They're kind of a novelty there. The Europeans love the American
• 26:41
  West and John Wayne and wild horses and they it's such a
• 26:47
  privilege to them to have one of our horses and that I think
• 26:50
  we've lost that here. It's become such a their dime a
• 26:54
  dozen. If you don't like the one you
• 26:55
  have, just get another one. Like I think it's so cool to
• 26:59
  work with people that really value them and see them the way
• 27:02
  that I see them. So yeah, it's amazing program.
• 27:07
  Yeah, that is incredible. It sounds like a really great
• 27:09
  program and especially to be able to get those difficult
• 27:12
  horses that probably, yeah, I would just end up crossing the
• 27:16
  border here and right, not having a good life one way or
• 27:20
  the other. Yes.
• 27:21
  That is amazing. And also how cool that there's a
• 27:27
  demand there, you know, that people do value them because
• 27:30
  like you say here, they're just so easily accessible, so easily
• 27:35
  disposable that they really have lost that value.
• 27:39
  That is really cool. I think that has probably some
• 27:42
  elements the other programs could follow to maybe help more
• 27:46
  horses. So I love that, Yeah.
• 27:49
  Tell us about your time in New Zealand.
• 27:52
  Oh wow, that was so much fun. So again, people always, it's so
• 27:57
  funny. My life is insane.
• 27:59
  People always ask me, are you home?
• 28:02
  Because I'm very rarely home. I'm always doing some just wild
• 28:07
  escapade. So this was this was similar.
• 28:10
  I had one of the girls that used to work for me.
• 28:14
  She called me one night and she's like, hey, I had this
• 28:17
  incredible opportunity and I just don't think I'm going to
• 28:19
  take it. I'm like, well, tell me what it
• 28:22
  is like. She's young.
• 28:23
  You should go do things I'm big on if you have the opportunity
• 28:26
  taken. And she's like, well, Kelly
• 28:30
  Wilson called me personally. She called her personally and
• 28:33
  asked me to come to New Zealand. Yeah, to gentle wild.
• 28:36
  They're wild canonical horses. And she's like, I just don't
• 28:39
  think I want to. I don't think I want to go.
• 28:42
  And I'm like back up, like the Kelly Wilson called you and
• 28:47
  asked you to come over and learn from her and gentle.
• 28:52
  They're wild. Like, that is an incredible
• 28:54
  experience. You should do it.
• 28:55
  She's like, I don't want to be that far away from home.
• 28:58
  You should do it. And I was like, give her my
• 28:59
  number. I will do it.
• 29:00
  Like, but she doesn't know me. She'd worked with this.
• 29:03
  She'd worked with this girl here in the States and knew her
• 29:05
  personally. So I didn't think I was like,
• 29:07
  she's not going to call me. She doesn't know anything about
• 29:09
  me. Well, she called me about a week
• 29:11
  later and she was like, hey, like, I've heard really nice
• 29:14
  things about you and I I need help.
• 29:17
  Would you be interested in coming to New Zealand for three
• 29:20
  months? And I was like, yes, like,
• 29:22
  absolutely. I'm, I'm coming.
• 29:25
  So I booked flights like that night, I was finishing up my
• 29:30
  Germany horse project last year. So I booked flights and didn't
• 29:35
  really think about like, you know, I thought about like, oh,
• 29:39
  you know, it'll be, it'll be so cool and all this stuff.
• 29:43
  Well, I land in Auckland and realize I don't actually know
• 29:47
  these people. This random person I've never
• 29:50
  met is picking me up. It's like 3 1/2 hours drive with
• 29:54
  this random person I've never met.
• 29:56
  It was such a crazy experience. The girl that picked me up ended
• 29:59
  up being like one of my best friends.
• 30:03
  Kelly is amazing. Like she's such a phenomenal
• 30:06
  teacher and listener and learner of the horse.
• 30:10
  It's always the horse first. You work for so many people that
• 30:15
  it's their image first or their profit first or their you know
• 30:20
  what's in it for them first. It's so rare to work for people
• 30:24
  where the horses actually first. Kelly is so passionate about
• 30:29
  saving these horses. So their wild horses have no
• 30:34
  natural predators. They are the biggest animal on
• 30:37
  there. Like range lands.
• 30:40
  They overpopulate really quickly.
• 30:43
  They have, I think they can only sustain, I think, 200 wild
• 30:47
  horses. So every year they have to
• 30:48
  gather at least 100 horses. The horse, they're ponies.
• 30:53
  They're not like at least our Mustangs are big and stocky.
• 30:58
  These are ponies, like, they're very like sporty, like people
• 31:02
  use them for, you know, English sports.
• 31:05
  But they're pony sized, so the demand for them is not very big.
• 31:10
  So Kelly will go and she'll go to the roundup and she'll pick
• 31:15
  horses that she has documented. You know some of them she's
• 31:18
  documented from birth. She goes out into the ranges and
• 31:20
  photographs them and writes their stories.
• 31:24
  So she'll pull as many horses as she can that have homes already.
• 31:29
  Like this person promised to adopt a three-year old stallion.
• 31:32
  This person said they would adopt A Marinfold.
• 31:34
  This person said they would adopt A 10 plus stallion and
• 31:38
  she'll pull those horses from the round up.
• 31:41
  The rest of the horses go straight to slaughter.
• 31:44
  They do not have any kind of government incentive to protect
• 31:48
  the horses or house the horses. They literally Kelly goes and
• 31:52
  picks what she can take and the rest go straight to slaughter.
• 31:57
  So they are working to eliminate that as an option.
• 32:01
  Their government just honestly cannot sustain housing them like
• 32:06
  we can. But it's so sad to see these
• 32:09
  ponies go straight to slaughter. So Kelly last year pulled 100
• 32:13
  horses from from the catch pens and helped 100 horses find home.
• 32:20
  So I think she and her team personally did 80 and then other
• 32:24
  trainers around the country did the other 2025.
• 32:29
  So it's really an incredible. Her program is remarkable.
• 32:32
  The horses come straight from the roundup, so they're on the
• 32:35
  ranges into stockyards, sorted, put on her truck and in her
• 32:40
  stockyards in like 24 hours. It's a really quick turn around.
• 32:44
  She lets them sit for a day or two and then we started dental
• 32:47
  ING them. So she has like a six weeks from
• 32:51
  when they're gathered to when they're in loving homes.
• 32:54
  So they, we start them at liberty like we teach them, you
• 32:58
  know, to face up to come to us. We teach them to be touched with
• 33:01
  the whip, preparing for the halter.
• 33:04
  We they learned how to cross obstacles at liberty.
• 33:08
  We were catching them in fields like with hot wire in three
• 33:11
  weeks from being completely wild.
• 33:14
  We were turning them out with their friends, catching them in
• 33:16
  hot wire like some of them took longer to learn the process.
• 33:21
  But once they have it, like they always can fall back on it.
• 33:26
  I think I worked with I personally did eight horses, but
• 33:29
  I helped gentle a couple of the other girls horses as well.
• 33:32
  Some of them took a couple of us.
• 33:35
  They were just really feral, really untrusting.
• 33:39
  Some of their they're not like our the Mustangs come from herd
• 33:44
  management areas. They don't call it that.
• 33:47
  It's like, but it's the same thing.
• 33:49
  So you have horses that were used to seeing people really
• 33:52
  gentle, don't mind people. And then you had horses that
• 33:55
  were from like a military testing site and they were super
• 33:59
  sensitive to noise. Seeing people like every
• 34:02
  morning. It was like the first time
• 34:03
  they've ever seen people. If you drop something and it
• 34:07
  clicked like they would that whole, all the horses from that
• 34:10
  area would just start take off running.
• 34:13
  So it's interesting to see how the horses from each area
• 34:17
  reacted to the same exact process.
• 34:21
  Some took a really, really long time.
• 34:24
  One of my stallions took I think 3 weeks before I got a first
• 34:28
  touch and then he started, He became a little bit aggressive,
• 34:32
  like he would come into my face really harshly and I was like, I
• 34:37
  just don't think I'm going to get him haltered at liberty.
• 34:39
  Like I think he's going to bite me or attack me or be scared.
• 34:44
  And she's like, you can do it. Like just keep trying you'll get
• 34:47
  it. I was like, OK, and I
• 34:50
  eventually, with lots of help and encouragement, did get him
• 34:53
  haltered and I was so sad to leave him.
• 34:56
  He we had such an incredible connection.
• 34:58
  By the time I did get him haltered, it was so powerful to
• 35:02
  see those horses choose us every day versus, like I said earlier,
• 35:09
  getting halters on them right away and kind of like
• 35:11
  manhandling them into domestic life.
• 35:14
  These horses came willingly. Some of them came within the
• 35:17
  first few days. Some of them it took three weeks
• 35:19
  before we could touch them, but it was such a unique experience
• 35:25
  and it's the style of horsemanship, so different.
• 35:27
  They're very European, like a lot of liberty, very English,
• 35:33
  which was different for me. I'm very much a Western girl,
• 35:37
  but I got to, you know, dabble in some jumping.
• 35:40
  By the time I left there, I was jumping a cross country course
• 35:43
  bridalists on one of Kelly's horses.
• 35:47
  So it was such a like well-rounded, unique experience
• 35:51
  and most all of it was at liberty, which was like so
• 35:56
  inspiring to me. I've always had this like in the
• 36:00
  back of my head, like, is there a better way we can do horses?
• 36:05
  Is there a softer way? Is there a more emotional
• 36:09
  connection type way we can do horses without allowing our
• 36:13
  horses to be pushy and walk all over us and take advantage of
• 36:17
  us? There's a fine line with that,
• 36:20
  you know, liberty. We want to be kind.
• 36:22
  We want to, if you don't mind, would you please?
• 36:25
  But also there still has to be boundaries.
• 36:27
  We are still people and they are horses.
• 36:29
  They can't treat us like herd mates though.
• 36:32
  We all want that, you know, spirit, wild horse, wild
• 36:37
  stallion, connection with our horses.
• 36:40
  But finding that middle ground has always been in the back of
• 36:44
  my mind, like, it's got it, there's got to be a way.
• 36:47
  So I feel like Kelly kind of showed me the way.
• 36:50
  It was really an emotional experience for me.
• 36:53
  I think probably once a week I would have to like, walk out of
• 36:55
  the pen and go cry. Like I wish I'd known this five
• 36:59
  years ago. I wish I'd known that I could
• 37:01
  make this an option for my horses.
• 37:05
  So I think as young people, we experiment and try so many
• 37:09
  things, trying to find the right way.
• 37:12
  And then one day the right way find you.
• 37:16
  So it was such a life changing experience for me.
• 37:19
  I really, it changed the way I see people.
• 37:22
  It changed the way I see horses. And it just reminded and
• 37:27
  encouraged me that there is always another way.
• 37:30
  Even if it doesn't feel like there's a right, you know,
• 37:32
  another way, there is always another way.
• 37:35
  You have to just keep looking and decide how important it is
• 37:38
  to you to find the right way. So it was important to me and
• 37:41
  the right way did find me. So yeah, I don't remember where
• 37:47
  I was going with that. I kind of.
• 37:48
  Got what an amazing opportunity to it was land in your lap.
• 37:52
  Yes, and it was interesting. So I was there for three months
• 37:57
  and I think it was 5 days before I was supposed to come home and
• 38:02
  Kelly had injured herself. She was supposed to do a demo
• 38:05
  with Dan steers of double Dan Horsemanship, which was so
• 38:08
  ironic. She had a liberty demo with one
• 38:11
  of her personal horses and he was going to ride a horse and
• 38:14
  she was going to do in hand liberty and she injured herself.
• 38:18
  And she's like, I just don't know.
• 38:19
  Like I hate to let Dan down. This is like our biggest
• 38:22
  performance of the year. It's at a big equine festival.
• 38:25
  It's their biggest, like, equine festival in New Zealand.
• 38:28
  And Dan was coming from the Liberty Festival in the States,
• 38:33
  so he was coming back home. But he's like, I'll just come by
• 38:36
  and do the equine festival in New Zealand as well.
• 38:40
  So she injured herself. And we were all sitting in the
• 38:43
  kitchen one night and she's like, I just don't know who's
• 38:46
  going to do this demo with Dan. Like, I'm injured.
• 38:49
  Like, somebody has to do it. And none of the other girls
• 38:51
  there said a peep. They were all just like, we
• 38:54
  don't want to do it. And I was like out like I will
• 38:57
  do it. That would be a dream come true
• 38:59
  for me if I got to work with like Dan steers of double Dan
• 39:02
  Horsemanship. So I extended my stay for
• 39:05
  another month and worked with her liberty horse Dallas and got
• 39:10
  to learn a lot more like performance liberty stuff.
• 39:12
  So we just been gentling the wild horses.
• 39:15
  So that last month I was there was when I got to work on some
• 39:19
  jumping, did the jumping bridal list and worked with Dallas and
• 39:22
  learned a lot of the more performance horse stuff.
• 39:26
  So that was such like the privilege of my life to be able
• 39:29
  to perform at the biggest equine festival in New Zealand with one
• 39:34
  of my like childhood role models, like inspiration.
• 39:38
  It was such like such a cool experience.
• 39:41
  So that was kind of the icing on the cake for that.
• 39:44
  My time in New Zealand, it was a lot of hard work, a lot of
• 39:47
  learning. It was like learning a foreign
• 39:49
  language, learning how Kelly teaches these horses, but that
• 39:53
  was like the icing on the cake. So yeah, phenomenal, phenomenal
• 39:57
  trip. And it really has changed how I
• 40:00
  do horses now so. What are some of the most
• 40:05
  notable lessons you've taken away from your time in New
• 40:07
  Zealand and or working with the Mustangs that go over to Germany
• 40:12
  that you've maybe integrated into what you do now?
• 40:16
  Probably the most, it's so hard to pick one, but definitely like
• 40:22
  it takes the time it yeah, the fun of them for sure is it takes
• 40:25
  the time it takes people, children, dogs, cats, horses,
• 40:32
  orca whales, they all learn in their own way.
• 40:35
  I think a lot of people get hung up on this is this is the way.
• 40:40
  This is my method. This is the only way to do
• 40:44
  horses. Everybody learns different.
• 40:48
  If we get so hung up on like copy paste, I do it this way
• 40:51
  every single time. We miss out on the opportunities
• 40:55
  that horses have to teach us something different, either
• 40:58
  about ourselves or about training or about the tools you
• 41:01
  have. Like every horse has something
• 41:04
  to teach you. And I think it's so sad when
• 41:06
  people get hung up on, well, I know, I know everything and this
• 41:10
  is this is the best way to do it.
• 41:13
  OK, maybe for like 75% of horses, that's the best way to
• 41:17
  do it. But what about the other, you
• 41:19
  know, 25%? What about those horses who who
• 41:23
  is making sure they have the best experience?
• 41:25
  Who's making sure they are taken care of?
• 41:27
  Who's making sure they learn? You know, and those 25% of
• 41:33
  horses get deemed dangerous or untrainable or unlovable and
• 41:38
  then they end up in bad situations.
• 41:40
  So I think being open to learning the way the horse needs
• 41:44
  to be taught, like Kelly said it best, if you've trained one wild
• 41:48
  horse, you've trained one wild horse.
• 41:50
  If you've trained 100 wild horses, you've trained one wild
• 41:53
  horse. Like every horse is so unique
• 41:57
  and should be treated like a unique individual and not like
• 42:00
  one more notch in my belt. Oh, well, I've trained 101
• 42:03
  horses. Like I'm so talented.
• 42:05
  No, it's just like you've done one horse.
• 42:09
  So that's been a really impactful thing.
• 42:11
  Like never go into it. Like you're just going to go in
• 42:14
  there and like smack out your program.
• 42:17
  Like you can definitely have a plan, definitely have an idea.
• 42:21
  Never have an agenda. If you think that you're going
• 42:25
  to go in there and just slap your agenda on a horse, they're
• 42:28
  going to slap you with their agenda and it's not going to be
• 42:31
  what you're hoping for. So that's definitely one.
• 42:36
  And the other one I think is being patient with yourself and
• 42:42
  the learning process. I think a lot of young trainers
• 42:45
  I grew up, some of my very best friends I met at my very first
• 42:49
  makeover, and I have had the privilege of watching all of us
• 42:53
  grow up in the horse world, being patient with their
• 42:58
  process. Like when I look back at videos
• 43:00
  from a few years ago, I'm like, who?
• 43:02
  Let me show that horse like that looks horrendous like, but in my
• 43:07
  mind that was the best I could do at the time.
• 43:09
  That was the most that was all the information I had.
• 43:15
  But you have to be patient with yourself.
• 43:16
  You, we are always learning and evolving and growing.
• 43:21
  You have to just trust the process.
• 43:23
  The horses are the same way. They don't know.
• 43:25
  You have to be patient with the fact that they were wild
• 43:28
  stallions two weeks ago. They were wild stallions with
• 43:31
  herds and families and babies and protecting from predators.
• 43:35
  And now we're trying to gentle them and get them to cross, you
• 43:39
  know, weird obstacles. And they're in weird footing and
• 43:44
  they're learning. Like, you can't rush the
• 43:47
  process, whether it's emotionally in your life, in
• 43:51
  your career. You have to just take it one
• 43:53
  step at a time. And I think again, as a teenager
• 43:57
  I was really rushy and impatient and easily frustrated by life.
• 44:02
  I didn't have a lot of direction, didn't really have a
• 44:05
  passion, and then one day a passion lit.
• 44:08
  But it's one step at a time. You can't jump to the end goal.
• 44:12
  I'm still working towards where I want to be, but it takes all
• 44:15
  the steps in between to get there.
• 44:18
  So I think my biggest thing is like, just trust the process, be
• 44:22
  patient with yourself. You're still learning and it's
• 44:26
  OK to not have all the answers. It's OK to not know what 2 steps
• 44:30
  ahead looks like. You just have to take the step
• 44:32
  in front of you. So I think that's my biggest
• 44:36
  motto in life is just trust the process.
• 44:38
  Like you're going to get where you're going.
• 44:39
  Nothing's going to keep you from who you're meant to be except
• 44:42
  for yourself. As long as you keep putting one
• 44:44
  Step 1 foot in front of the next, like you're going to get
• 44:47
  there. So yeah, I feel like there's so
• 44:51
  much to, I've learned so much from horses, but that's
• 44:54
  definitely the biggest one for me is just be patient.
• 44:57
  So. Yeah.
• 44:59
  And I think your life kind of speaks to that, the way these
• 45:02
  opportunities, you know, you took the action for it and then
• 45:05
  these new opportunities would present themselves.
• 45:07
  So that's really neat. Absolutely, yeah.
• 45:09
  I think good things come to people, good things come to
• 45:12
  those who wait. That is a very true statement.
• 45:16
  And trusting the process, if you can just relax and take one step
• 45:21
  at a time, the process that unfolds is beautiful.
• 45:24
  The things that come from struggling, the things that come
• 45:28
  from not understanding and working through learning how to
• 45:32
  do something new is beautiful. So I, yeah, I'm a big believer
• 45:38
  and just let things happen the way they're supposed to happen
• 45:41
  and good things will come to you.
• 45:45
  Yeah, that's great advice too, because a lot of frustration and
• 45:48
  even giving outcomes when you're kind of in the middle of that
• 45:50
  learning process. Yes, because we are so focused
• 45:53
  on the end goal instead of kind of seeing the benefit of the
• 45:57
  moments that we're in right there and right and how great it
• 46:00
  can be now. Well, and it's hard again, as
• 46:02
  young trainers, I see a lot of young trainers throw themselves
• 46:07
  into a, a learning opportunities, throw themselves
• 46:10
  in it all the way. And like we talked about
• 46:12
  earlier, sometimes it's not a perfect fit.
• 46:15
  You can't let that discourage you.
• 46:17
  It's OK to remove yourself from a situation that's not right,
• 46:21
  that's not helping you thrive and put yourself in a situation
• 46:24
  that might be better. Sometimes you got to tough it
• 46:27
  out and do hard things. But at the end of the day, if
• 46:31
  you're not growing, if you're not thriving, if you're not
• 46:33
  being nurtured and put in an environment where you can grow,
• 46:39
  it's OK to remove yourself and put yourself in a different
• 46:42
  environment that might be healthier for you.
• 46:45
  A lot of young people take the first opportunity that comes and
• 46:49
  tough it out until they're like, I'm going to like just muscle
• 46:52
  through this. You don't, you shouldn't have to
• 46:55
  muscle through it. It it might be hard, it might
• 46:58
  grow you, but you shouldn't outright suffer, if that makes
• 47:01
  sense. You should not be in a situation
• 47:04
  with a trainer that is abusing your willingness to learn.
• 47:09
  So yeah, but that's that's a tough place to be in too, so.
• 47:15
  Yeah, that is good insights. I think for horses and for
• 47:18
  people that, yeah, it would be a lot easier if there was always
• 47:21
  one answer and that was the right answer and we just knew
• 47:24
  that's the way to go. But it really is more a process
• 47:27
  of filling it out as you go and kind of gaining that
• 47:29
  understanding and getting those insights along the way, which is
• 47:33
  what makes it so tricky and frustrating sometimes.
• 47:35
  But definitely better if you can be open to that.
• 47:38
  Yes, Yep. Tell us a little bit about your
• 47:42
  cult starting. Oh, wow, that was fun.
• 47:46
  So again, same thing. I have opportunities fall in my
• 47:51
  lap all the time that I'm like, oh, I've never done that before.
• 47:53
  But I yes, I always say, yeah. So I was doing a Liberty demo,
• 48:01
  like a bareback and bridal list demo at the Southern Equine
• 48:04
  Expo. I guess it was.
• 48:05
  I did the demo two years in a row, and people always came up
• 48:09
  to me and they were like, we love the way you teach.
• 48:12
  We love the way you talk about your journey and your process
• 48:15
  and you're like, you're such a great teacher.
• 48:18
  Like, we would love to see you do something bigger.
• 48:20
  I was always in like a small pan, you know, in the back,
• 48:23
  which was fun. I was young, had no business in
• 48:26
  front of a big crowd. And the man that runs the
• 48:30
  Southern Equine Expo, like caught me in passing one day and
• 48:33
  he was like, hey, like I'm hearing great things about your
• 48:35
  demos. People really like you.
• 48:37
  Would you be interested in doing the cult starting challenge that
• 48:40
  we have here? And I was like, yeah, like I
• 48:44
  sure. Like I'll have to.
• 48:45
  I have nothing about that. Like I cult start for the
• 48:49
  public, but like I'm not really that good.
• 48:52
  And he's like, you'll figure it out.
• 48:53
  Like just say yes. And I was like, yes, I'll do it.
• 48:56
  Like send me the info, I'll do it.
• 48:59
  So I was like, Oh my gosh, like I have to actually like I'm very
• 49:03
  competitive. I don't want to get like last.
• 49:06
  Like I need to be, there's three of us.
• 49:08
  I need to be at least second. Like I you know, I don't have to
• 49:10
  win it. I'm probably not going to win
• 49:12
  it. I don't know anything about this
• 49:14
  that I'm going to try. So I was working with Ginger
• 49:18
  Duke and Kevin Graham at the time and I was like, I need
• 49:21
  help. Like you guys have, like what do
• 49:22
  I do? Kevin had worked with some
• 49:25
  other, I think he's done some cult starting in the past
• 49:28
  competitively. And he's like, I'll help you
• 49:30
  like make a process, you know, kind of a guideline.
• 49:35
  Obviously you're going to have to be flexible.
• 49:39
  So we, they had a bunch of Colts sitting in the backfield.
• 49:41
  We'd go out every day and I'd like catch whichever one came up
• 49:45
  to me and we'd take it up and we'd we'd work through, he'd
• 49:48
  start the timer, we'd work through a process and then write
• 49:52
  down like, how did that go? You know, I got hung up on this
• 49:55
  one thing that took up way too much time.
• 49:57
  I don't have time for that in a cult starting challenge.
• 50:02
  So the challenge at Southern Equine Expo is a little
• 50:06
  different than Road to the Horse.
• 50:07
  We have I think 3 hour long sessions and then we have one
• 50:12
  hour and a half session and then 145 minute session.
• 50:16
  So that sounds like a lot of time, but it's really not.
• 50:18
  By the 4th session we have to be riding out of the round pen with
• 50:22
  the other two competitors and we have to pen cattle.
• 50:25
  And then the fifth session, we have 45 minutes to get through
• 50:30
  all the obstacles. So it's a lot to get done in
• 50:34
  those sessions. So Kevin and I would, you know,
• 50:37
  we'd pull the cult up, work on, you know, you got to get her
• 50:41
  saddled and maybe step up and off of her in the first session.
• 50:45
  So we got it nailed down to where every time I pulled up a
• 50:47
  horse the first hour, I could get it saddled and get on it.
• 50:51
  And so I was like, that's good. And then we would work on the
• 50:54
  next phase of that, which was making sure, you know, can she
• 50:57
  drag obstacles? Can it does it cross obstacles?
• 51:00
  The first time I asked, you know, how do I make sure that
• 51:03
  I'm asking in a nice enough way that she's like, oh, I'm happy
• 51:06
  to do that for you. I worked with all Phillies.
• 51:10
  And then of course, we get to the challenge and I get a
• 51:12
  gelding. I draw a gelding and I'm like,
• 51:14
  oh, no, like usually it's mayor. It's like, so the gelding I drew
• 51:19
  was super, kind, super curious, like really wanted to please.
• 51:23
  And he was like, yeah, I can do that one time.
• 51:26
  He would only do stuff one time. And then he's like, I don't want
• 51:30
  to do it again. So any time I'd ask the second
• 51:33
  or third time, it was really a challenge.
• 51:35
  He was really like, I did it the first time, really good.
• 51:38
  I don't want to do it again. So we knew going into the last,
• 51:42
  the final round, I would have to pretty much go through the
• 51:45
  obstacles and get it right the first time.
• 51:48
  So you have to, in that final round, you have to go over the
• 51:51
  obstacles and declare. I declare, I'm doing the bridge,
• 51:54
  I declare the tarp. You know when you say I declare,
• 51:57
  that's when they score you. So Kevin was like, I think you
• 52:01
  need to just go through and declare each obstacle the first
• 52:05
  time you do it. Just like point him at it if you
• 52:07
  know he's going to go just I declare and do it.
• 52:10
  And it was so funny because the judges when they came up and
• 52:14
  talked to me after, they were like, we have never seen anybody
• 52:18
  just go through and declare the first, like declare the
• 52:20
  obstacles the first time and like actually do well.
• 52:23
  And he did everything he did, all the obstacles, like with
• 52:27
  just like point, I point him at it and he would just do it like
• 52:30
  it was flawless. It was so, so well done.
• 52:33
  But that was just the kind of horse he was.
• 52:35
  He was just really willing the first time.
• 52:38
  So that was great. Yeah.
• 52:41
  The other, it was such a learning opportunity because
• 52:45
  again, I wasn't, I was cult starting.
• 52:47
  I've been cult starting for a couple of years.
• 52:49
  But doing it under that much pressure and you have the other
• 52:54
  competitors around, you're really just trying to pay
• 52:56
  attention to what you're doing. But then like the one girl, her
• 53:00
  horse was bucking and going crazy.
• 53:02
  And I'm like, just focus. Like you don't have that much
• 53:05
  time. You can't stop and watch like
• 53:06
  you got to do your thing. But anyway, it was so such an
• 53:11
  interesting experience. I ended up winning it, but which
• 53:15
  was just like pure luck and definitely I, you know, having
• 53:19
  cabin help me cabin with my pen Wrangler.
• 53:22
  He really just knows me well enough to know, hey, you need to
• 53:27
  step back for a second. Just take a breath.
• 53:29
  Like you're getting a little anxious, you're getting a little
• 53:31
  rushed, like you need to just take, just walk out of the pen
• 53:34
  for a few minutes and give him a break or you've spent too much
• 53:38
  time on that. Move on to the next thing.
• 53:40
  He really helps me stay on track, which is half the battle
• 53:43
  in a cold starting challenge. He ended up his girlfriend got
• 53:48
  invited the next year to compete and she won it as well.
• 53:51
  So Calvin definitely has a knack for the pen wrangling, but.
• 53:54
  He's a good coach. Yeah, he's amazing.
• 53:58
  They've been such, such an inspiration to me and my whole
• 54:01
  journey. They've helped me with a lot of
• 54:03
  Mustangs. They're they're incredible
• 54:05
  people. But yeah, so it was, it was
• 54:09
  definitely a learning curve for me.
• 54:12
  Cult starting on your own, you take as much time as you need.
• 54:17
  You can do short sessions. You can, you know, really
• 54:22
  customize it to what the horse needs in this setting.
• 54:26
  Like you only have the time you have and you have to get stuff
• 54:30
  done, but you can't push them too far because they're babies
• 54:34
  and you only have so much time. Like you have to really keep
• 54:37
  things super interesting and interactive.
• 54:41
  But I loved it. I would definitely do 1 again.
• 54:45
  I love the pressure of competing once I enter the arena.
• 54:48
  I really like lock into what I'm doing Before I'm usually a
• 54:53
  wreck, and then once I enter that, the pen, you just lock in
• 54:57
  on what you're doing. But yeah, it was such a
• 55:01
  incredible learning opportunity to see how horses learn and
• 55:05
  process under that much pressure.
• 55:08
  Most of the stuff I do, I try to do it like take your time, as
• 55:12
  much time as you need to cross that bridge like I have all day,
• 55:16
  like I am in no hurry. And this time I was like, I need
• 55:20
  you to do it pretty quick. I need you to get it done.
• 55:23
  So it was interesting to see how how you can apply pressure but
• 55:27
  still be kind and considerate to the fact that he'd never seen a
• 55:32
  bridge before in his life, been out in the fields his whole
• 55:35
  life, never seen a tarp before. He needs a minute to think about
• 55:38
  that. That really helped me learn and
• 55:43
  change. I changed a lot of things in my
• 55:44
  program after that learning opportunity with Kavin and then
• 55:49
  through the competition, I changed a lot of things in my
• 55:51
  program. So yeah, it was such a cool,
• 55:57
  cool opportunity. Yeah, yeah.
• 55:59
  Was it hard at all to balance the well-being of the horse with
• 56:02
  the competition in the timeline? Yes.
• 56:04
  So thankfully I had a horse that was like really curious about
• 56:10
  me, really curious about, you know, people in the stands.
• 56:14
  Like the clapping never bothered him.
• 56:17
  The pressure didn't really seem to bother him.
• 56:19
  The biggest struggle we had was he was kind of A1 and done.
• 56:24
  So finding that balance of not letting him say no, I'm not
• 56:28
  doing that, but also not getting into a big fight with him.
• 56:33
  They just don't have the mental capacity to process being in
• 56:38
  trouble in that sort of a timeline.
• 56:40
  Like if you had to get onto one for something they didn't, it's
• 56:44
  hard for them to recover, if that makes sense.
• 56:46
  If you, if they, you know, buck or something.
• 56:49
  Mine didn't buck, but I've seen other competitors horses buck.
• 56:53
  Normally you would kind of correct that at home, but in
• 56:55
  that setting you can't make it a big deal.
• 56:58
  Or they're they will buck every time you put a saddle on them,
• 57:01
  They'll buck every time you get on them.
• 57:04
  So it is hard to process what is important for this situation and
• 57:09
  what is not important for right now.
• 57:13
  Like we had to prepare them to do obstacles and pen cattle in
• 57:17
  front of people and with other horses in three sessions.
• 57:21
  So it's important that you get on them as quick as you can, but
• 57:26
  it's also important you don't get on them too soon and make
• 57:28
  them buck. So it's so hard to and you're
• 57:32
  you're preparing them to go straight into a new home.
• 57:34
  My horse was sold with the first round.
• 57:36
  Somebody went up and bought my horse.
• 57:38
  My horse got sold immediately. He's going straight into a new
• 57:41
  home. No idea what kind of home he's
• 57:43
  going to get. How can I make sure that he's
• 57:46
  prepared to not hurt these people when he gets home or that
• 57:49
  he's not going to be scared of the saddle if they wait a week
• 57:52
  and pull the saddle out a week later.
• 57:55
  So covering your bases. Like he was really confident
• 57:58
  with the saddle. I could confidently pick his
• 58:00
  feet up. He was easy to catch after the
• 58:02
  first time. Stuff like that.
• 58:04
  Like what's more important, winning the challenge or making
• 58:07
  a horse that's going to be successful later in life?
• 58:10
  And that's a hard thing as a competitor to decide, But
• 58:15
  thankfully I was gifted the ability to be able to do both.
• 58:19
  I had a horse that could handle the pressure and took things in
• 58:22
  stride and was going to be a good citizen after.
• 58:25
  And it I won the challenge on him as well.
• 58:27
  So it was, I thankfully didn't have to like make a choice.
• 58:33
  I've seen competitors have to like sacrifice the competition
• 58:36
  to make sure their horse didn't have a horrible experience.
• 58:40
  But I thankfully had a really, really cool little horse that
• 58:43
  was like, willing to try. So yeah.
• 58:49
  Tell us now about what you are now doing with Get Horsemanship
• 58:53
  and your approach and all those things.
• 58:57
  Yeah. So I think through the past,
• 59:00
  we'll say a couple of years experience, I'm, I'm finding
• 59:04
  that it's OK to just take things slower.
• 59:07
  I always, I think Clint Anderson said it, be as soft as possible,
• 59:12
  but as firm as necessary. My horses that leave my
• 59:15
  programmer generally will respond off of as little
• 59:19
  pressure as possible, but also know there is a consequence, you
• 59:22
  know, for bad behavior. You know, like I don't.
• 59:27
  It's so hard in the liberty world to find a balance between
• 59:31
  being you do you, if you would like to, if you don't mind,
• 59:36
  could we please? And no, this is a boundary.
• 59:39
  You have to do this today. Like I always tell people, if
• 59:43
  there was an emergency, like I have a lot of people that come
• 59:46
  to me that want to do liberty, They want that warm fuzzy.
• 59:49
  They want that wild stallion of the Samaron connection.
• 59:54
  But if there's an emergency, if your barn's on fire, are you
• 59:58
  going to go in there and be like, if you please, will you
• 1:00:00
  please come and get in the trailer?
• 1:00:02
  Like hurry? They no, they have to understand
• 1:00:05
  that if you amp the pressure up, if you ask something, if you
• 1:00:08
  demand something right now, they have to be like, OK, like I
• 1:00:11
  trust you. We have a good enough
• 1:00:12
  partnership that I'll do it. So I think finding that balance
• 1:00:16
  of offering as much liberty as I can, but also.
• 1:00:22
  Making sure that these horses are safe if they ever, if
• 1:00:26
  something ever happens to be my personal horses can have normal
• 1:00:29
  lives to my liberty team can go and be, you know, saddle horses
• 1:00:34
  or pack horses or mounted shooting horses.
• 1:00:37
  We do some mounted shooting stuff.
• 1:00:40
  I always try to prepare my personal horses to have other
• 1:00:44
  careers outside of being liberty horses or being, you know,
• 1:00:50
  whatever I do, they can do other things too.
• 1:00:52
  So my program is, I like to say that I'm versatile.
• 1:00:57
  A lot of horses that come through my program can be Rd.
• 1:01:00
  Bratless. By the time they leave, they can
• 1:01:02
  do obstacles, they can do trails.
• 1:01:04
  We've worked Colts off of them, we've worked cows off of them.
• 1:01:08
  They go home with like a well-rounded experience.
• 1:01:13
  So I always tell people when they want to send a horse to me,
• 1:01:17
  I'm going to take as long as it takes.
• 1:01:19
  Like it might take six months, it might take a year, it might
• 1:01:22
  take a month, I don't know. I'm going to take as long as it
• 1:01:26
  takes for your horse to learn my process.
• 1:01:31
  And everybody wants something different.
• 1:01:32
  Some people just want to know that their their Mustang, their
• 1:01:36
  wild Mustang can be caught in a big pen, pick up all four feet,
• 1:01:40
  load no trailer, and they want to do the rest.
• 1:01:42
  Some people want a seasoned trail horse when it comes home.
• 1:01:48
  Everybody wants something different, but I always tell
• 1:01:50
  people it takes as much time as it takes.
• 1:01:53
  I'm going to try to do this with as much compliance from your
• 1:01:57
  horse as I can. I don't like to force horses
• 1:01:59
  into situations. Even with the Germany horses,
• 1:02:04
  excuse me, Even with the Germany horses, I take as much time as
• 1:02:07
  it takes. And if they're not ready to get
• 1:02:11
  on that plane and go to Europe, they don't go.
• 1:02:14
  We do not force them into that situation.
• 1:02:16
  If they can't handle the pressure, if they can't handle
• 1:02:20
  the stress, if they don't eat when they're under stress, if
• 1:02:22
  they don't drink water under stress, I will not put them in
• 1:02:26
  an environment that's that stressful, if that makes sense.
• 1:02:31
  They stay here and continue training or get adopted out to
• 1:02:35
  someone else or however they need to go.
• 1:02:38
  So I would just say through through the last two years, my
• 1:02:43
  approach has become a little bit softer and more understanding.
• 1:02:47
  I think as young people, there's a lot of pressure to just get it
• 1:02:51
  done. Get that horse road.
• 1:02:52
  Even if he bucks, you better get on him and ride him and get him
• 1:02:56
  broke in in 90 days because that client wants him back broke in
• 1:03:00
  90 days. And now I'm like, it might take
• 1:03:02
  more time than that. I am not.
• 1:03:04
  If I think he's going to buck, I'm not going to get on him.
• 1:03:06
  He's not ready if he's bucking, that's it.
• 1:03:09
  That is a, a fear response or a trauma response or he's in pain.
• 1:03:15
  I'm not going to ride him through that.
• 1:03:17
  I'm going to find a solution for him.
• 1:03:20
  If he's bucking, he's not ready for me to get on his back.
• 1:03:24
  If he's, you know, running through the halter, he doesn't
• 1:03:27
  trust people. He's worried about the halter.
• 1:03:30
  He's worried about being that close to people, whatever that
• 1:03:34
  looks like. Every horse is different.
• 1:03:37
  So just taking the time it takes to find a solution per horse.
• 1:03:41
  I have always reminded myself that I don't want to ever
• 1:03:45
  deliver a copy paste. This is the get horsemanship
• 1:03:48
  method. This is how you're going to
• 1:03:50
  train your horse. No, we have lots of options to
• 1:03:53
  train your horse. Whatever.
• 1:03:54
  I had this whole playbook of options for your horse.
• 1:03:58
  Whatever works best for him is what I'll do.
• 1:04:01
  So that's kind of where my program is at right now.
• 1:04:04
  I'm still learning things and building things into my program,
• 1:04:08
  but I try to do what fits your horse best, so yeah.
• 1:04:14
  Yeah, that's great. And it's nice to see more and
• 1:04:16
  more trainers kind of get to that point where time is going
• 1:04:21
  to be based on the needs of the horse rather than the human
• 1:04:24
  timeline. And I think as more trainers do
• 1:04:26
  that, that's what's going to be accepted more in the horse
• 1:04:30
  community. So I do think that's really good
• 1:04:31
  because yeah, 90 days is not going to be the same for every
• 1:04:34
  horse. Absolutely.
• 1:04:36
  And especially I feel like liberty is starting to take root
• 1:04:40
  here in the States. That's been very European and
• 1:04:44
  like in New Zealand, it's really big.
• 1:04:46
  It's really starting to take root here.
• 1:04:48
  I think in the future that's going to be the standard for
• 1:04:51
  horsemanship is going to be liberty.
• 1:04:54
  I think that's in the best interest of the horse.
• 1:04:56
  If done properly, I think people can make little monsters doing
• 1:05:00
  liberty and trick training and target training.
• 1:05:02
  It has to be done correctly, but I think in the future that will
• 1:05:06
  be the standard of horsemanship. So it's exciting to see that
• 1:05:10
  really start to take off here in the States.
• 1:05:12
  You know, with the Liberty Horsemanship or the Liberty
• 1:05:15
  Horse Festival and the competition, the Liberty Horse
• 1:05:18
  Competition and more people wanting to gentle wild horses at
• 1:05:22
  Liberty, it's going to take over at some point.
• 1:05:24
  And that's exciting because that means that our understanding of
• 1:05:29
  horses and horsemanship has gotten that deep versus just
• 1:05:34
  being ignorant and manhandling horses in the situations.
• 1:05:38
  So I'm excited to see that kind of take root here in the States.
• 1:05:42
  So. Yeah, it is great.
• 1:05:44
  And I think the more aware we are that there needs to be a
• 1:05:47
  balance. I think it can be really easy to
• 1:05:48
  lean one way or the other and, you know, to just be always soft
• 1:05:52
  and give the horse whatever they want and then they can often
• 1:05:55
  become dangerous or pushy or not listen, unless you're catering
• 1:05:59
  to them the whole time versus, you know, you being the boss.
• 1:06:02
  It's really great to see that partnership building between
• 1:06:05
  horse and human and that you guys are working together for
• 1:06:08
  the benefit of both. So I love that that's that's
• 1:06:11
  growing as well. So we were brought together from
• 1:06:18
  the Horses for Mental Health campaign.
• 1:06:21
  So talk a little bit about working with Samsung Strength
• 1:06:26
  Sustainable Veterans Project and the work that you're doing with
• 1:06:29
  them. Yeah, so I don't remember how
• 1:06:33
  Kathy found me. I had a horse for sale that I
• 1:06:38
  had started for a client. She just wasn't a good fit for
• 1:06:41
  her program. And she was like, I will sell
• 1:06:45
  her to you if you want to find her a home.
• 1:06:47
  So I was like, I'll take her. She's a big, beautiful buckskin
• 1:06:51
  Mustang from Oregon. And I had her advertised and
• 1:06:55
  just wasn't finding a home for her.
• 1:06:57
  And I thought it was so odd that I had this incredible horse that
• 1:07:00
  I couldn't find a home for. And I think Kathy found me on
• 1:07:04
  Facebook and was like, hey, would you consider donating your
• 1:07:08
  horse to our program? Like, I know that's a lot to
• 1:07:11
  ask, but like, here's what our program is and what we offer.
• 1:07:14
  And I was like, Oh yes, come get her.
• 1:07:19
  I have always had a passion and a soft spot for our veterans.
• 1:07:24
  I think that they are underappreciated and they're not
• 1:07:28
  taking care of in our society. They're literally laying down
• 1:07:32
  their lives for our country and then ending up homeless and
• 1:07:35
  struggling with mental health and suicide.
• 1:07:40
  We're a military family. We're 5 generations military or
• 1:07:43
  6 now. I think my dad's a veteran, my
• 1:07:46
  grandpa's a veteran. I've got brothers in the Army
• 1:07:49
  and the National Guard. We are a military family.
• 1:07:52
  We support our veterans. So I always felt like I would at
• 1:07:56
  some point do some work supporting either a veterans
• 1:08:00
  organization or doing that ourselves here at our ranch.
• 1:08:06
  So when Kathy reached out to me, I was like, that is yes, I would
• 1:08:09
  love to work with you guys. I would love to support you guys
• 1:08:13
  because I think, I think that horses really make a difference
• 1:08:16
  in people's mental health. I've seen it in my life and I
• 1:08:20
  don't have, you know, war trauma, but we all experience
• 1:08:24
  trauma in our lives and horses can heal that.
• 1:08:28
  Horses can make a difference. I work in different things that
• 1:08:33
  I do in my career. I do work alongside veterans,
• 1:08:38
  you know, Army Rangers and guys that have had some pretty
• 1:08:41
  horrible things happen to them. And they all ride horses.
• 1:08:45
  They they all say horses save their lives.
• 1:08:49
  So yeah, I was so excited to be able to partner up with Samsung
• 1:08:52
  Strength. So they have Dasani, which is
• 1:08:55
  the first horse, and then I donated a second horse to them I
• 1:09:00
  think last year for somebody they were working with.
• 1:09:03
  And then they have a third horse that I trained that my client
• 1:09:07
  donated to them as well. So I love to see what they're
• 1:09:11
  doing. I love to help their program.
• 1:09:14
  If we have horses that are a good fit, I'm like, hey, I have
• 1:09:16
  a horse. Like do you guys need another
• 1:09:18
  horse? I think we're going down there
• 1:09:21
  for a clinic in May. So that's super exciting.
• 1:09:24
  Just love being involved with what they've got going on.
• 1:09:28
  They've always been really kind to everybody here at Get Horse
• 1:09:31
  and the Chip and my whole team. So yeah, we, we love them.
• 1:09:35
  They're an incredible program, great organization, so.
• 1:09:40
  Yeah, and this is a great time for anyone else who wants to
• 1:09:42
  contribute, to seek them out and to do donations.
• 1:09:47
  They're going to be in the Horses for Mental Health
• 1:09:49
  campaign where they're kind of working to build up their
• 1:09:52
  donations to make sure their horses are taken care of and
• 1:09:54
  they can keep providing those services.
• 1:09:56
  So super great opportunity there for anyone who loves horses and
• 1:10:00
  appreciates veterans. It's really good organization to
• 1:10:03
  support. Thank you so much for being
• 1:10:06
  here. I absolutely love listening to
• 1:10:09
  your experiences. I so admire your like yes,
• 1:10:12
  attitude that you're like, oh, I'm gonna go, you know, across
• 1:10:16
  the world to train horses. This sounds amazing.
• 1:10:19
  So such a good example and like so much great advice for someone
• 1:10:23
  who's wanting to get into the world of horses and to learn.
• 1:10:27
  One thing that really stood out to me is like, you're always
• 1:10:30
  learning. You're always taking advantage
• 1:10:32
  of opportunities to learn, and I think that is really a key with
• 1:10:35
  horses. Be open to that, open to
• 1:10:37
  learning new ways. Don't be stuck in the lane that
• 1:10:40
  you started in, because a lot of us did start where maybe we had
• 1:10:43
  these rules that you're supposed to follow and always commit to
• 1:10:47
  with horses. But there are so many, so many
• 1:10:50
  good ways to have a life with horses and appreciate the work
• 1:10:53
  you're doing, so many cool programs you're involved in, and
• 1:10:56
  definitely your heart for the Mustangs.
• 1:10:58
  They need all the help they can get from people who who care
• 1:11:01
  about them. So absolutely, absolutely, thank
• 1:11:05
  you so much for being here. Yes, thank you so much for
• 1:11:08
  having you tell everybody where they can find you, how they can
• 1:11:11
  take advantage of your services, what you offer to the public.
• 1:11:15
  Yeah, so I am on Facebook as Grace Thompson and Instagram and
• 1:11:22
  TikTok as get horsemanship that's gentle, effective and
• 1:11:27
  thorough horsemanship. So GET and then I also have a
• 1:11:32
  website, ioffer clinics, demos, lessons, virtual lessons, and I
• 1:11:37
  am taking in client horses at the moment.
• 1:11:41
  So yeah, if you know, I love to help people and I have the same
• 1:11:45
  approach for people as horses. Everybody needs something
• 1:11:48
  different. And I feel like a lot of
• 1:11:51
  training programs are very like, oh, we train raining horses or
• 1:11:55
  oh, we train ranch riding horses or we do X probably whatever you
• 1:12:00
  need. I'm happy to learn alongside
• 1:12:03
  you. I'm happy to help you find your
• 1:12:05
  passion with your horse. I'm, I always encourage people
• 1:12:08
  when they send a horse to me. Let your horse tell you what he
• 1:12:12
  wants to do. Horses always have a knack for
• 1:12:14
  something. Summer liberty horses, summer
• 1:12:16
  ranch horses, summer mounted shooting horses.
• 1:12:18
  Let your horse tell you. But yeah, so my website,
• 1:12:23
  Facebook, Instagram, Tiktok, reach out, shoot me a message
• 1:12:27
  and we'll see what we can do. Yeah, definitely a great
• 1:12:31
  resource for people to take advantage of and for someone who
• 1:12:34
  wants to help them build that partnership.
• 1:12:36
  So thank you again for being here and for sharing all your
• 1:12:41
  experiences with us. Thank you for joining us and
• 1:12:44
  learning about Horses that Heal and the humans who help them.
• 1:12:47
  We hope you'll continue with us on this journey.
• 1:12:49
  We'd love for you to subscribe on your favorite platform and
• 1:12:52
  follow the touch of a Mustang on any of the major social media
• 1:12:55
  outlets. Please share with your friends
• 1:12:58
  anyone who loves horses or anyone who might be struggling
• 1:13:01
  and could benefit from this message.
• 1:13:03
  If you have felt the healing power of horses or help them in
• 1:13:06
  their divinely appointed mission, please reach out.
• 1:13:09
  We want to hear your story. As we say goodbye, always
• 1:13:12
  remember that the horse is always there to help you heal.