Focusing on the reality of starting young horses, Wil, as usual, shares his message in easy, "down to earth" language.  Emphasizing the importance of safety through control, and control built on trust, step by step, Wil and Beverly demonstrate how to create a willing horse, that is light mouthed, responsive to direction and forward impulsion, and able to handle situations of mental and physical pressure in a relaxed manner... all prior to getting on!  Making that "first ride" a positive experience for both horse and rider.

The Start with Control & Trust and find out the rest of the story!
$69.95 plus $7.00 s/h

To Order Call Beverly Howe 541-893-6535

Available in VHS, DVD or PAL

From Our 1998 Winter Newsletter

We have been reluctant to do "a colt’s first ride" tape seeing as everyone and their brother has got one out, but we’ve gotten so many requests to know how Wil goes about handling those first few rides. So we did some filming this October for our new tape to be out in January, 1999 entitled "The Start: with Control & Trust". If you have been to one of our clinics and seen us in action you know we don’t make a big deal out of it. But we do like to get the horses attention, get them light in the face, yielding well to the bit before getting on.

     We insist on control, consequently, in the fifteen years and all the horses we’ve started at the clinics we’ve never had a wreck or injured participant. That’s a pretty good record in comparison to other clinicians known for their bridleless colt starting sessions. So, yes we do things a little differently and we are concerned with the riders welfare as well as the horses.

One can never expect things to go as planned when it comes to horses and boy did we have three difficult youngsters to start for our new tape. It was a last minute plan and we had to round up some un-started babies at the eleventh hour to get this tape filmed before the snow flew. So we ended up with one gelding and two fillies! (much to Wil’s dismay! Ha!).  We didn’t go out and hand pick some $20,000 royal bred 2 year old, who is bred with a trainable mind , and "broke the first ride", nor did we have to prove a point and go out round up a "broom tail" off the desert that no one has business trying to make into a saddle horse anyway.

     What we got were three average horses, handled by average everyday horse people who taught these babies to be gentle, but in turn allowed them be pushy, disrespectful , and "doggy". Consequently like most spoiled children they threw a temper tantrum when they were asked to do something for the first time in their life.

These three sulky, stubborn youngsters in the new tape will give a true picture to many frustrated backyard horse trainers on what to expect when they attempt to start their colt. It’ll show how to persevere with patience, gain their leadership, build respect , nurture trust and gain control both mentally and physically before mounting their horse for the first time.

     Our goal was to bring out the seriousness & reality of working with un-started horses. Hopefully, sharing some common sense to those that think starting a young horse is an easy, romantic fairy tale and that all you have to do is "whisper to your horse" and he’ll let you ride him. That’s right, "let" you ride him?

Personally, we prefer to exhibit a little more authority with our horses and yes we do have to "impose our will" on the horses or we’d never be able to ride them! We impose our will on them everyday just by confining them in a corral. We believe it’s all in the attitude in which you approach your training and schooling of the horses.