10/24/2025
Love this!
What are you hiding?
Recently, a local newspaper here in Iowa got wind that there was a multiple World Champion and million dollar earning horse trainer living in the area. Local residents, business people, and even friends had no idea. We've lived in this community for the past 5 years without being known, except for a rare few.
Since the article came out, people are now aware of who I am and what I do. I'm now a novelty! As a result, it got me to thinking. Why am I hiding? What else am I hiding?
I grew up here, moved to Texas for 36 years, then moved back for family reasons. In those Texas years is where I built a majority of the results of a successful show career. In my Texas community, it seemed everyone knew who I was and what I did. I couldn't walk into a restaurant or grocery store without being recognized. Horses and those who trained them were a big thing. Celebrities, in a way. I fit into the culture where being a champion horse trainer was popular. I was understood. My truth was acceptable.
Locally here in Iowa, I was the guy who lives on a farm, buys a lot of hay, but doesn't know how to farm. I was misunderstood. The truth didn't seem so acceptable.
So what changed? Me. It was positive in Texas to be a horse guy because horses are a legitimate career. The only thing people knew about horses in a farming community is that they take up space where there could be corn instead. Horses are a hobby. Horses are an unwanted expense. Horses aren't a positive thing. Even as a kid growing up here, those few of us who had horses were made fun of in school. I hid then. I hid again. I wanted to fit in. I didn't want to be misunderstood. The truth seemed unimportant.
And then something strange happened after the article at the local diner, the gas station, the hardware store, and the farm store. I got recognized, and it was ok. Now I can tuck my shirt in and show off my buckle. I can wear my spurs to town instead of put on my shoes. I can even wear my hat if I want to. I still may not fit in, but It's empowering not to hide. It's good to be understood. The truth does actually set you free.
I've traveled the world in boots, spurs, and a cowboy hat with confidence but shied away from it locally. It only took me 40 years to grow up. I wish I'd done it sooner
In my career, I've been misunderstood in some of my previous writings and occasionally in my clinics as well.
People tend to take things out of context in order to create controversy or show that they are right in a twisted way. So what did I do about it? Nothing. Pulling out one sentence of a story, or 10 seconds of a video to support a view, happens to anyone who puts stuff out there. I recognize hiding the truth from experience. They're hiding.
I ride, write, and teach others about training horses in full context without hiding. I'll be curious to see who takes pieces out of this article and spin it to fit their agenda. It's apparently an "in" thing to do.
So what's this got to do with horse training? What's the lesson I'm supposed to take out of this, you may ask yourself.
I grew up watching my dad and other heroes train cutters, rope horses, reiners, and pleasure horses. Learning how to make adjustments and improve through the process of getting one broke.
It was early on that I noticed that reining training caused every horse to become better at what we asked them to do, no matter the discipline. It's how we got them broke. It's why I became a reiner. It's why I still am. Because I use the concepts of reining to now build better foundations and competitive ranch horses. It exposes what other disciplines try to hide. Resistance.
Some misunderstand reining and other highly competitive equine training, thinking the horses are taught to hide from their thoughts, feelings, and reactions through intimidation, meds, and abuse. The reality is quite the opposite. Through reining training, horses learn to develop great confidence in their own abilities to handle both the mental and physical challenges of the sport. How? By being exposed to their own insecurities and teaching them how to deal with them. They develop life skills.
In my opinion, if you're not finding the anxieties in your horse in the process of training, you're actually teaching them to be insecure and fail when anxiety shows up. And it will. Respect their right to be offended and get over it.
Don't teach your horse to hide. Show them how to achieve big things by creating uncomfortable situations and helping them overcome them. If your goal with your horse is to achieve something remarkable, you'll have to be willing to open the occasional can of worms and show them how to fish.
Be your horses own reporter. Write its story when you're done. Will the story be one that hides him? Some horses deserve to be known. So do you.
What's your horse hiding from? Find it. What are you hiding from your horse? Show it to them.
What are you hiding from? Own it.
Mark Twain once wrote, "You'll worry less about what people think of you, when you realize how seldom they do."
