TJ Clibborn, Trainer, horseman, mustanger

Meet TJ Clibborn, one of the best colt starters that ever walked! You will enjoy getting to know TJ and listening to all the wisdom he has to offer. 

Transcript

SPEAKER_02 1:50

This is my host, Cushy, and I am the host of today's Horseman podcast. My guest today is TJ Clibbin. And TJ and I have been friends a long time, and honestly, he's probably one of the very best cult starters I ever met in my life. So, TJ, tell everybody a little bit about you and how you got involved in horses.

SPEAKER_00 2:11

Well, I came here in 1990 from Australia thinking that I could do what I wanted to do and show what I wanted to show and make a name for myself in America. And I've been here 34 years and I'm still here. You know, I have my U.S. citizenship and uh yeah, I've just stayed here and I've just started a training business called True Partnership, which I want with every horse I handle. You know, I want that bond first before I have anything else. So that's where I started. I started out in California and um moved all around the United States. I think I've trained a horse in every state in America bar four.

SPEAKER_02 2:57

Imagine.

SPEAKER_00 2:58

Yeah, yeah. That's it, that was my aim when I came here. I wanted to start a culture in every state in America.

SPEAKER_02 3:06

And you you've worked with a lot of different kinds of horses too, Mustangs and uh warm bloods and a lot of different stuff. So tell us a little bit about that.

SPEAKER_00 3:15

Well, uh yeah, I got into Mustangs in 2008, was my first one. And I've done about 26 challenges to this date. And uh I found that was very interesting, you know. Um they're different to domesticated horses because they haven't got any human traits like domesticated horses have. You know, I think humans make horses become not horses, you know, they become pets. And they come in here into my training program and they've got so many human traits that I need to work out of them before I come back to being a horse trainer, you know. Before I come back to starting them. They have to get rid of a lot of stuff in their head, you know. So and with the Mustangs, I find they come straight in, all they gotta do is trust you.

SPEAKER_02 4:19

That's true. Now I know that you've had experience working with warm bloods too, so tell us a little bit about that. Are they are they different?

SPEAKER_00 4:28

Um they're a lot of people call them dumb bloods. Yeah. And I think they're just big animals that yeah, they're slower, you know, in the way they learn. So I've done a lot of warm bloods. I started with at Manic Book Farm in it's in uh Indiana, uh, for a lady, Mrs. Alan McCracken, and she's dead now, but um, I started all her cults for 12 years in the warm blood industry. Some went on to be Grand Prix champions in show jumping. Then I started working up with blue chip farms in uh in New York, and I started a bunch of cults for them. Um yeah, and now I do I do a lot of warm bloods. I have one in here right now, it's a big dressage horse that came in and it had bucked its owner off and broke its leg. And her European instructor told her to take it to a cowboy, so she brought it to me.

SPEAKER_01 5:27

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 5:28

And now we got it going pretty good, you know. It's been here for a few months, but uh it had to learn that I wasn't gonna put up with what it was doing, you know. It was it was the sort of horse they unloaded off a trailer and had a chain across its nose, and it wouldn't stand still in the driveway, and you know, now you can lead it out and it's heads down and you can lead it to the round pen and wherever you want to go. You know, she can't believe how good it looks and how well it behaves right now. You know, she was just here the other day, and yeah, but it took took a long time to get it that way. It took a long time. Yeah, you know, they have a lot of problems when they when they buck somebody off. They're you know, you've got to realize that you've got to ride them. You can't you can't solve that problem without getting on.

SPEAKER_02 6:19

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 6:20

You know, you you can do all the groundwork you like, everything else, but you've got to get on the horse. That's what a lot of people don't do. They might know how to do it on the ground, but can you do it if something goes wrong up in the air?

SPEAKER_02 6:35

Right.

SPEAKER_00 6:36

On that horse's back, and that's where I see a lot of people go wrong is they get on them horses and they don't know how to handle them. You know, they just don't. They think they do. Yeah, they seem to come off an awful lot, you know. But uh I I don't think you can beat experience, you know, you can't beat experience, and it's experience riding those sort of horses, you know, and and getting through all those different problems that they come up with. Um, you know, you can go and read as many books as you want to, you can go and watch as many videos as you want to, you can go and see as many trainers and clinicians as you want to, but until you're put in that situation yourself, you don't know how to handle it.

SPEAKER_02 7:24

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 7:25

And that's where a lot of young people go wrong.

SPEAKER_02 7:28

Oh, I I totally understand. I when I forgot my first stud cult, I'd watched all Clinton Anderson's videos, and I just knew that I knew everything about it. And I got in the round pin with him. I couldn't even make him go around the round pin, so I I'd get it.

SPEAKER_00 7:43

Yeah, and you know, uh in cult starting competitions and and things like that, it's just the luck of the drawer. You know, how you can handle that luck of the drawer is you know, you might have the best colt in there, but it's how you handle that cult. And if you can get through the program, that's all that bothers me. That horse needs to come out better than than what he came in there. That's that's what I reckon.

SPEAKER_02 8:11

And I know when we did colt startings, you know, there were a lot of times when you did not get the best horse of the lot.

SPEAKER_00 8:17

You know, oh yeah, I had a few bad ones, but but you did make it managed to get them written and we managed to get them through the program. And yeah, I might not have won, but um, that's just the luck of the draw, you know.

SPEAKER_02 8:31

Yeah. Um well they came a long way with you helping them. There's no question about that. So I'd say you won whether you won the prize or not.

SPEAKER_00 8:39

Oh, yeah. You know, it's not all about the prize, it's uh all about the horse and how good he can come out the other end from when you start him. Um, it's it's different with every horse. Every horse has a different mindset, and you might be out, you might have a certain method of training, and you might be following somebody's program, but until you run up with a problem that you've got to solve that that horse doesn't go with that program, well, you've got to have a tool in your toolbox to help that horse, you know. And that's what a lot of people are missing. They they don't fill their toolbox enough, they follow just one person, and when they come across a horse that don't like that method, then they've got nothing else to go back to.

SPEAKER_02 9:27

Yeah, yeah. Now, do you have a favorite breed? Smart Yep, there you go. Good answer, smart answer.

SPEAKER_00 9:38

Yeah, you know, I don't really have a favorite breed, you know. I I've dealt with probably, I don't know, lots of breed, different breeds, and um you you might have a favorite horse, but you might not have a favorite breed. They're all a little different. You know, I've had some favorite horses in my day. I've had some great warm bloods under me that have gone on one one Grand Prix all over the world. Um, I've had stock horses from Australia that have gone on one camp fast. Um, you know, the Australian stock horse is a lot different to American horses, too. Um they ride all year round all their life in a snaffle bit.

SPEAKER_02 10:25

Right.

SPEAKER_00 10:26

So they are broke.

SPEAKER_02 10:28

Yeah, for sure.

SPEAKER_00 10:29

You know. Um, a lot of people here will start their horse in a Bozelle or a hackamore, uh, then go to the snaffle bit or anything like that, or the spade bit, or whatever. Um, but I think the horse has to be broken in the snaffle first before you go to anything else. He's got and and he's got to do everything you want him to do in that snaffle bit.

SPEAKER_02 10:54

That makes very good sense. So you have been continuing on doing colt startings and expos all over the place. So tell us a little bit about what you've been up to.

SPEAKER_00 11:04

I got a good one this year coming up in uh in May. I uh they asked me to put on a colt starting clinic uh or a cold starting competition at the Iowa Horse Fair in Iowa, and uh so I did, and um we sent out entries and everything, and it was funny. I got 15 and I can only take six, you know. Um, so I had 15 different videos to watch and choose the people and everything. So we have people from all over the country. Even have a guy from Canada coming. Nice. He's coming all the way from Canada. Um, he's competing in uh T Ton out in uh Idaho here next month, I think that's on. Um but and then we have a guy from New Hampshire, one from Wisconsin, we have uh two girls from Wisconsin and one girl from Iowa. Nice. So I'll have three girls and three boys, and that way I wanted it that way so that the audience could choose who they're gonna follow, you know.

SPEAKER_01 12:13

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 12:13

So it's a little bit of an idea of how the women do things compared to how the men do things. And uh we're gonna have a Calcutta on the Wednesday night, or Thursday night, sorry, and we're gonna sell all the contestants. Um, and uh whoever buys the winning contestants will get 50%, and 50% goes to the contestants themselves. So um we've got it pretty good organized, you know. Pretty well. Um, all the horses are coming from one ranch in Iowa. Um that uh they belong to Cassie and Matt Winters, and they're coming off the Winters Ranch over there. They're well-bred ranch type horses, you know, well-bred cow horses. Um, I went over last uh November and picked the six colts I wanted. Um we picked seven just in case you know how it goes. Right. In case one bumps a leg or something, or yeah, yeah. Um, and then I'm gonna doing that, and then I've got clinics here at the house, and um, I've got clinics away on my first clinic is this weekend. Um, I'm going over to a big barn that's close to us, only about an hour and a half away, and we'll be doing horsemanship on Saturday and then problem solving on Sunday. So it should be interesting.

SPEAKER_02 13:32

Very nice. Now, is all that information on your website where you'll be well, it's not updated.

SPEAKER_00 13:38

I'm a little bit slack, mate.

SPEAKER_02 13:41

I understand.

SPEAKER_00 13:42

I I get busy and I don't update my website, but it will get updated. I I will put those things on my website or my Facebook page. Uh okay, you know, I have an Instagram page now too, and um but most people I found just Google.

SPEAKER_01 14:00

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 14:01

Uh and I've got a lot of big business off my Google thing, you know. That's good. I've been on Google now five or six years. They type in horse trainer in Wisconsin, my name comes up straight away. So that's good, you know. That's the first one up there. So I've got a lot of business off that. And I've got probably 20 odd cults to come in so far this year. Um, they're already booked. The first one will come in next month, and then we'll go from there. Um I have a young lady that's come to work for me this year, so that'll be interesting, that'll be fun. Um I have another gentleman here who's wanting to learn. He's renting my bunkhouse at the moment. He works at a Home Depot, but he's he's all about horses. He wants to learn. Yeah, he's I give him his first riding lesson the other day, so he's never been on a horse until he got on one here. But he uh he reads everything you can read, watches everything you can watch. Uh and I keep telling him, you know, you might be able to read that, you might be able to watch that, but until you get that horse in your hand, you don't know what's gonna happen. It's when you get that horse, you know. It's when you lay your hands on that horse. And most horses, if you read them right, they'll tell you, they'll dictate to you what they need, you know. But uh yeah, so it's gonna be interesting working with him too. You know, he he's uh he's a good writer and he writes a lot and he he studies a lot, and but there's nothing like experience, nothing beats experience, you know. Yeah, I'm 70 years old now and I'm still breaking colts, so I must be still doing something right, you know. For sure. Um I had a new knee replacement about six years ago and thought that was the enemy. I didn't know whether I was gonna ride again, and that drove me nuts, but I was back on horse in six weeks. So um the surgeon told me I was his uh pinup child. So it's really good to wake up with no pain, you know, and uh have modern medicine do that, you know. Everything else is I try to stay fit, I try to stay healthy. And you know, I think if you're uh any sort of horse, and you've got to stay fit, you know. You've got to be you've gotta be fit to do what we do.

SPEAKER_02 16:33

Yes. That's for certain. You you can't there's no way you can recover from getting bucked off if you're not pretty fit because you you'll break something, you need to be able to bounce.

SPEAKER_00 16:44

Especially at our age, you know, especially at our age. It didn't worry me too much when I was younger. But uh now it really bothers me a lot, you know. So I've only been bucked off twice since I came to America. So um I've learned that if you stay in the middle, you can't get hurt. You just gotta outride that storm that's coming underneath you.

SPEAKER_02 17:08

That's right. That's right.

SPEAKER_00 17:10

And so there can be a lot of like that. There can be a lot of storms in your life, but you just gotta outride them.

SPEAKER_02 17:17

True, whether it's horses or just life in general.

SPEAKER_00 17:20

Well, life in general throws a curveball at us every now and then, and yeah, if we don't, if we let it get to us, um it'll lead us down the wrong path.

SPEAKER_02 17:32

That's true. Very true.

SPEAKER_00 17:35

Um and you know, I don't know whether the you know, I mean I believe in God and and and I believe he's kept me safe all this time, you know. And I've put myself in danger quite a few times. And he's always got me through. So I think uh that's a good testimony for him as well as me, you know, it's what you believe in yourself.

SPEAKER_02 18:02

I agree with you. Now you've accomplished so many things in your life. What's left on your bucket list?

SPEAKER_00 18:09

Oh, darling. I've still got four states I want to train the horses. I want to go, I gotta train one in Oregon, Idaho, Washington State, and Alaska.

unknown 18:20

Okay.

SPEAKER_00 18:22

So they're still on my bucket list. Um, but you know, you never know. Somebody might hear this and might might come up, you know.

SPEAKER_02 18:32

Well, believe it or not, I do post this in all of those states, including Alaska. And we've got a pretty good following, so you never know.

SPEAKER_00 18:40

You never know. I might get there yet, you know. That's that's mainly my bucket list, you know. Um I'd like to show a little bit more. Um, but people are keeping me too busy with their cults, you know. Yeah. Um so you gotta go where the where that money keeps coming in and paying the bills, you know.

SPEAKER_02 19:02

Sure.

SPEAKER_00 19:03

I don't know any good horsemen that don't have a lot of bills.

SPEAKER_02 19:07

Yeah, for sure.

SPEAKER_00 19:09

People think we might make money, but when uh when you gotta pay a mortgage and hay and feed and everything else that goes with it, and insurance and everything else, you don't make a lot.

SPEAKER_02 19:19

No, you gotta love it.

SPEAKER_00 19:21

You've gotta have a passion for this game. If you haven't got that passion, you better go to Woolworths and somewhere and work. You better go to Walmart and your degree of job.

SPEAKER_02 19:30

That's for sure. So this is a hard industry to make a living in. So, what advice would you give people that are coming into the industry as to how to be successful?

SPEAKER_00 19:42

I'd say go and work for some of the good trainers that are out there. See what fits you, what trainer, and go and work with them. How do we in my day I spent two to five years working for other people and working for scraps? I mean we got our board and and maybe throwing six or seven dollars a week, you know, it was it was pretty tough back then, but um we gained a lot of experience, and I think that's people need to know that. You know, you don't come out of riding in 4 H with experience. You just come out of riding in 4 H knowing how to show a horse. You know, there's a lot of difference between shouting horse and training a horse.

SPEAKER_02 20:26

For sure.

SPEAKER_00 20:27

A lot of difference, and yes, um there's a lot of young people out there that want to get into this game, and I tell them that this is a tough game to get into. You know, you might think you can ride until like some one of those horses underneath it really goes to down. Yeah, and then you'll figure out whether you're gonna stay in the middle or you're gonna get bucked off. That's right. How many times you're gonna get bucked off before you learn to stay on.

SPEAKER_02 20:56

That's very true.

SPEAKER_00 20:58

I think yeah, I think once you learn that you can ride and stay in the saddle and ride through those sort of storms and come out the other end a lot better than when you went into it, that's when you start to become a horseman. That's when you start to become a a rider, you know. You don't learn by riding the same old broke horse every day.

SPEAKER_02 21:22

That's what I was just sitting here thinking. You know, it does that doesn't mean a thing.

SPEAKER_00 21:27

You know, I've had interns that come to me, I've been riding since I was a kid. Still a kid. Yes, right, you might be 18, 17, 16, whatever, you know, you're still a kid.

SPEAKER_02 21:39

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 21:39

Yeah, just because you rode the same horse for so many years, it don't mean you can handle these horses. That's right. You want to be a cold stutter? Man, it takes some time to learn. And you've got to be willing to take criticism, you've got to be willing to stand back and think about it. If you can't, if You're gonna take a little bit of criticism the wrong way and stand in the corner and cry. Well, there's no crying in horsemanship, you know. Right. I remember that uh what was it, that baseball movie. You know, there's no crying in baseball. Well, there's no crying in horsemanship either.

SPEAKER_02 22:15

No, there's not.

SPEAKER_00 22:17

You're gonna take all those idols, and if you're not going to take them, then this is not the game for you, you know.

SPEAKER_02 22:25

I agree because you know, you're it's not just you. It you're training a horse for somebody else, so there's a lot of responsibility to it. It isn't whether or not you get bucked off, it's whether the other people do.

SPEAKER_00 22:37

Yeah, and that's why my clients come and take lessons with me before their horse go ever goes home. I want that person to be a part of the training. Yeah, you know it's not that I can ride your horse, it's I want you to be able to ride your horse before it's I want you to be able to have 10 lessons on your horse or so. If you can come every day, I'll let you come every day. I don't do anything with a horse on the shameless, you know. Uh some are tougher than others, and some you might have to pull a little hard on. But it's that horse telling you that. He's he's the one that's pulling hard on you, you know. Right. I just had an incident. Um I went and picked up a horse that they tried to load on Sunday for four hours. Tried to put this horse in a trailer. So I actually took my trailer up there and and worked the horse in a pen for a while and got him going from one side of me to the other, and he was really scared of a flag when I walked in there. And uh eventually got him to the trailer and got him into the trailer, and probably got him in front feet, back, front feet, back, and he'd pull back on me. But in the end, this horse had all four feet just standing in the trailer, and uh that's when I just took him off and I let him around for a while and let him have a little think about it, straight back to the trailer. He did the same thing, try to pull back. I said, No, you won't, you'll just go into the trailer with me. He just walked straight up there. We had him probably 15 minutes. I probably loaded him 10 times.

SPEAKER_02 24:20

I saw the video that you posted with that on there. You know, beautiful work beautiful work.

SPEAKER_00 24:25

Yeah, and you know, I've got it's probably 20 videos for me loading that hawk. Um, but he is he was just a little resistant with the flag. He didn't like the flags around him at all. Uh so I had to take him down and work him in the round pen for a while. Getting used to that flag and let him know that it wasn't gonna hurt him. I was just shaking at him, you move your feet. If I shake it, you move your feet. And uh eventually when I got him to the trailer, he just when I shake it at him, he'd move his feet. And that's all the try I want out of that horse, you know. I had one of our clients here yesterday, um, she was trying to get a horse to cross a black tar. And this horse had beaten her about six times. So he knew that he could beat her and go back the other way.

SPEAKER_02 25:15

Yep.

SPEAKER_00 25:16

And dragged her all over the arena and everything. And I had to go work him, and it he tried to beat me three or four times. He dragged me. Um, but eventually we got him where he was standing on the tar, you know. But it was the same thing. You just give me a little try. I don't care if your foot moves an inch, that's a try. Yeah. And if you move an inch when I ask you, that's a try. If you put your head down there and smell it, that's a try. You know, a lot of people they want more than what the horse is willing to give it to the start. You've got to let that horse think. He has to think about that, you know. That's a black tarp. To him, that's a big hole in the ground. You know, it's not like it's going across a grassy flat or anything. He thinks that's a big black hole. Yeah. And that's all he's thinking, you know, and he if and then it makes a noise too under his feet. So it's not only a black hole, it's a hole that makes a noise. So he thinks that uh this is gonna eat me.

SPEAKER_02 26:25

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 26:25

I'm gonna die here. You know, that's the only thing going through his mind. Once he gets it, the dick can go on there, stand there, give him a rub, let him soak, back him off, put him on again. Yeah, by the time we did that eight or ten times, he'd just walk over the tarp, and then I had the owner put him on the tarp, and she could back one foot off, bring one foot on. But it was a totally different ball game. But like I said to her, she said, How did you do that? You know, yeah, that quick. And I said, Well, that just comes with experience. I said, You you're a dressage rider. I said, now you're dealing with a horse that you have to train. And this horse's got a brain that says, Oh, that thing's gonna eat me a lot. It's not like going around a little square ring on a dressage horse. It's now you got a horse, and she she's got a cow horse, and you know, it's it's a little hot, so it's gonna argue, you know.

SPEAKER_02 27:33

And I love that you mentioned about the try, because I think so many people don't recognize it or acknowledge it. Yeah, because they they don't think about the smell as a try.

SPEAKER_00 27:45

Yeah, and you know, when they drop their head, that's a try. Even if it's a foot off a tarp, they've tried. Yeah, they've given you. It was like that horse I was loading. You know, when he'd give me a try, I left him alone, you know. I just shake my flag until you give me a try. Once you give me a try, that's all I'm asking for. Yeah, and horse will give anything to you you want. Anything, you know. I've trained them to jump through fire, I've trained them to sit like dogs, you know. They jump in the back of cars, and uh, but you know, that horse is he's gotta trust you first. Yes, he's gonna make sure that you're gonna be a good enough leader, that he's looking for a leader, you know, and you can watch them horses play in the past, and you can introduce another horse to them, and boy, they'll send sort out which one's first, which one's second, which one's down the line, you know. Yeah, and that new horse might end up being the top horse, but he might end up being number three, or he might end up being last. You know, you never know until they're introduced.

SPEAKER_02 28:55

Um I know I I interviewed um Jackie Turnbull a long time ago, and she said something that's always stuck with me that when you step in the ring with that horse, there's only two of you, and one of you is gonna be the alpha.

SPEAKER_00 29:07

That's right.

SPEAKER_02 29:08

She said, if you're not the alpha, don't go in the ring.

SPEAKER_00 29:11

No, if you're not, if you're not the leader, that horse is just gonna take full advantage because that horse is just gonna say, Well, I'm a leader, yeah, I'll push you around wherever I want to go. Yeah, and um I think that in that sort of situation, if you're not a thinking horseperson and you can't control that, well, then you need to take some lessons with somebody who can show you how to do it. Yes, I'm pretty lucky that my clients let me do that, you know. And let me show them first and then they'll go ahead and do it, and you know, or they might try first, and then I'll show them a different way, and you know, we try to work out partnership between us, you know. Yeah, we've got to have that partnership with between me and the horse, so you gotta have that partnership with the client, too.

SPEAKER_02 30:02

That's very true, very true. And you gotta be the alpha with your client too, because they gotta have a leader too.

SPEAKER_00 30:09

You can't people are funny, they always have these preconceived ideas, you know. The horse don't have any. He just says, How can I survive this to get back to go eating? Right. That's all that horse is thinking about, you know. I believe anyway, and uh I believe that the horse has a brain on each side of his body, and it's attached to that eye, and this brain's attached to that eye. It's not like ours where right controls left, left controls right. I believe right is right and left is left, and um that just comes with experience there.

SPEAKER_02 30:45

I agree. I mean, I I I've had with my horses, you know, do something on the left side, and when you walk around to the right, he's a whole different horse.

SPEAKER_00 30:52

Yeah, yeah, whole different horse. And and and I think he is a whole different horse. He doesn't know what the other side looks like. Yeah, yeah, he doesn't know what that side looks like.

SPEAKER_02 31:05

That's right. He's not trying to hurt you or nothing. He just is basing it on what he has in front of him right that minute.

SPEAKER_00 31:11

Yeah, it's like I've got a little Kentucky mountain horse in at the moment who when you go to the opposite side to the offside of him, he'll try to give you the near side eye. He will really turn around and put that eye. He doesn't want to look at you out of that right eye. He said, No, I want you out of this. And it's taken me probably three weeks to get him now where I can go to that side, and he's fine with me over there, you know. But um, it took a lot for him to trust me on that side of his body, and that's what it mostly had to do. I had to get his trust again, you know. Yeah, he'd lost it with somebody, so I had to gain it back.

SPEAKER_02 31:53

What is what is the most interesting training situation that you ever dealt with that was the hardest, I guess.

SPEAKER_00 32:03

Probably a trailer loading. Yeah. I was down at a a ranch in Indiana years and years and years ago, and there was a lady who had a grueler mare there, and uh she wanted to take it home to her place, and it had been boarded there for a while. And uh she said, Would you give me a hand to put this horse on the trailer? And she had a little stock trailer, and I said, Yeah, I'll do that, no, not a problem. That horse drugged me down the flat through the creek. I'd time to a tree and let him stand there for 20 minutes and think about it, take him back to the trailer, and he'd do the same thing again. End up rope burning my hands, I had gravel down my pants. This'll he was the toughest horse I've ever loaded. And it took me probably four or five hours before this horse give up that he'd go in that trailer. For some reason, I still don't know to this day why it was so hard for him to step up there, but he just well, it was a she, and she just said, I'm out of here, and she would she would literally drag me a hundred yards down it pass it. Yeah, and once age, like I said, we ended up in the creek, yeah. Yeah, sometimes they can just get stubborn, yeah. You just have to be more stubborn, you just have to say, Well, that's where I started, that's where I'm gonna finish, is you in that trailer. And of course, once I got her in the trailer, she loaded fine, probably ten times before we closed the door. And she's loaded every day since. And as far as I know, she's still alive today. But uh it was just that initial stage. She'd been there all her life, never been off the place, never been in horse trailer. She was broke, you could ride her, but she'd never been in Australia. Yeah, she said, I'm not going in that trailer, you know. And that was probably the most difficult one I've ever had. You know, um I've had horses bark, I've had horses at rare, but not really they haven't worried me that much as that trail loading did. That horse was just stubborn.

SPEAKER_02 34:25

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 34:26

Yeah. And she had little pig eyes and ears too, and well, she was a regular gruelomare, and she said, I'm not going in there.

SPEAKER_01 34:37

That is so interesting.

SPEAKER_00 34:38

Yeah, I've had horses that you know refuse jumps or or wouldn't go through a creek, or you know, and you just have to persevere with them. But usually 10 or 15 minutes you can get that done. Yeah. Um, but this, you know, four or five hours was it was a battle for me, you know.

SPEAKER_02 34:58

That's hard because when you start, you got to finish.

SPEAKER_00 35:02

Well, that was it. I I wasn't going home until that horse came up to that trailer and just stood there without taking me down the flat. Yeah. That's all I wanted. You come up here and just stand here. Yeah, we'll put you in the trailer in a minute, but you can stand here. And she didn't even want to come up and stand at that trailer. Wow. That's how difficult she was. You know, she'd get 20 feet from that trailer and just go the other way. Right. She had a little short neck, and she could just lock that neck in behind her shoulder, swing around and go. I mean, they can be stubborn.

SPEAKER_02 35:36

They can, no doubt about it, just like people.

SPEAKER_00 35:39

Yeah, yeah. But every everything else I've usually been able to handle. But that was one that just took me a long time. You know, and I I'd call back home to my uncles in Australia and get advice and everything. And I often Guy McLean and I talk all the time, and and uh, you know, we've often talked about different problems we're having, but we always seem to come up with an answer. But that was uh just a long day. That was a long one. It was just like she was worn out and I was worn out by the time we actually got finished.

SPEAKER_02 36:17

I can imagine so. So if people want to reach out to you to find out how to to get your help with horse training, how can they reach you best?

SPEAKER_00 36:26

They can reach me on my Facebook page, they can Facebook message me, or they can actually call me if they want to. They need to call me. Um, my phone number is 765-729-1217. It'll come up as an Indiana phone number, even though I live in Wisconsin, um, because it's my cell phone, I've had it for years and years and years.

SPEAKER_02 36:48

Right.

SPEAKER_00 36:48

Um, or they can go to my uh website or they can go on Google and Google me in Wisconsin and yeah. But uh other than that, you know, I I think that people will find you wherever you are. For sure.

SPEAKER_02 37:06

Well, you're definitely worth finding, that's for sure.

SPEAKER_00 37:09

Well, thank you. I appreciate that. I appreciate that.

SPEAKER_02 37:12

Uh tell me one more time where your colt starting is in Iowa.

SPEAKER_00 37:16

It's the Iowa Horse Fair. And it's on the 8th, 9th, and 10th of May. Okay. And uh they can find that on the on the they can look that up online.

SPEAKER_02 37:29

Yeah, yeah, definitely. So if you guys live in that area, you definitely want to be sure you attend that because even watching TJ, you can learn a lot, trust me, because he we've done a lot of events together in the past, and he's worth the time and trouble to go.

SPEAKER_00 37:43

Well, thank you very much for having me, Don, and I appreciate it.

SPEAKER_02 37:47

Well, I appreciate you being on the show, and I thank you very much.

SPEAKER_00 37:50

Okay, take care.

SPEAKER_02 37:52

You too, and as everybody listen, thank you guys for listening. I appreciate you. Pleasure today's sports podcast.