Clinician Topics

Sheila Varian

We can promise you that you will be well entertained and enlightened by Sheila Varian. Sheila is the ultimate “cowgirl” so much so she was inducted into the Cowgirl Hall of Fame. Sheila has devoted her life to her famed Arabian horses and the California Vaquero’s training and horsemanship.

During Sheila’s clinic she will demonstrate what she does with her horses to encourage sensitivity on the ground as well as on their backs. She will talk about hackamores, vaquero tradition, the two rein and straight up in the bridle.
 

Leslie Desmond

Building in the Basics for a nice Riding horse.
When you are training horses, some things cannot be done the way you want, or plan. In this demonstration I am going to talk about how you can read a horse and decide what you’re going to do next. This kind of adjustability is the essential ingredient for getting along with almost any horse. If you want things to work out in the long run for that horse, you also need to establish a pretty solid connection between ground work and mounted work that is based in feel and release. I will show how this is done. Note: I got kicked in the foot a while ago and if my ankle hurts too much, then part of the time I may have to show how that groundwork foundation is laid in from the back of my saddle horse. I hope it doesn’t come to that, but Tony will be there in case I need him.

Leaving the Lightness In
In my experience so far, it seems that most horses are born with enough lightness and energy to do the job they are needed for. What happens too often in the gentling and training process is that the lightness is discouraged, and in some cases taken out to the point where a rider needs a whip or spurs to get the horse motivated to work, or to perform. That situation sometimes goes along with the need for a pretty stout bit to get those feet stopped after they finally get going and the reason is because the importance of that inborn lightness has been overlooked, or misplaced for the time being. Even in the older horses it is usually still in there and it is not too hard to find if you know where to look. In this demonstration I will direct the audience’s attention almost exclusively to the poll and the feet. By the time that demonstration is over, they will be clear about the importance of the timing and placement of each foot in a maneuver, and learn how to keep the horse’s natural lightness intact and available.

I want to thank Dr. Robert Miller, his wife, Deby and Eitan and Debbie Beth-Halachmy, for the opportunity to share with the public the basic foundation Bill Dorrance taught me to build into the horses I start and ride. He and I worked together regularly between 1995-1999. For a good part of that time I worked and rode alongside Bill at his ranch that sprawls across the top of Mt. Toro over-looking Salinas, CA. He had a hay ranch down in Hollister, too.

Although his boys – Billy, Dave and Steven -- were the main ones running the family’s cow-calf operation during the time I was in residence there, Bill still gathered and sorted cattle with them and roped at the brandings . One morning he rolled out at about 3 in the morning with his mare, Beaut, and a couple of other fellows that had come with their own horses the night before to help out at a neighboring ranch’s branding over in the Carmel Valley. They all came back after lunch and the other men went straight in for a nap. Not Bill. He sat at the table for a couple of hours and told me all about the goings on that morning while he sorted through half a bag of beans for a dinner he planned to make the following night. “You know, those boys roped well enough, “he said. “ But as big and strong as they appear I’d thought they’d hold up a little longer’n that.” Bill headed 210 calves that morning and was still going strong for the rest of the day. He was 92.