 |
Testimonials |
|
Timing is Everything
We are writing to you personally to thank you
for your program and most importantly, your trainers.
We purchased two Friesian geldings at the age of three. They are
cousins who grew up together in the same pasture in Holland. Lucas had
one month of training from a breeder in Holland, while Lover Boy had
eight months of very bad training from a trainer in California who
abused him pretty bad. The breeder whom I purchased both horses from,
told me that she fired the trainer after she observed Lover Boy's mouth
bleeding on numerous occasions from the trainer banging him with a
chain over his upper gums & beating him with his whip. Her husband
was very honest with me and told me "You don't want to buy this horse".
Being abused as a child myself, of course my better sense did not get
the best of me, because I purchased him anyway.
Lover Boy associated people on his back with extreme pain and lots of
fear. When you would get in the saddle, he would try and commit suicide
any way he could, just to get you off his back. He would run into walls
and knock them down, he would try and run over cliffs in a blind panic.
Generally he would do some pretty extreme bolting, to say the least. It
was like riding a stick of dynamite.
My husband and I went through about four to five trainers in Malibu
where we live, to try and find a non-aggressive one for Lover Boy. Two
of the trainers were very good but Lover Boy just didn't take to them.
One of the trainers told me to get rid of him because he would kill me.
We decided to purchase just about every horse training video and book
in the world to try and save this horse, until we finally found your
program. We tried to do your home video course, but we both work full
time, we had two green horses, and we were two green riders, which
equals black on blue. So we decided to ask Arabella Bardakjian. who was
a Level I trainer in your program, to give us some help with our home
study courses. I must say that Lover Boy fell in love with her
immediately. She read him very well. She has probably the best timing
and non-aggressive methods I have ever seen in a young lady training
horses from the ground. She must have been a horse in another life,
because she knows their language so well. Lover Boy was following her
around like a puppy. He just couldn't believe there was a kind human
that understood him. We spent the first year training them (which was
really on the ground with Arabella, and they did better than we did.
Then she told us to send them up to Moon Valley Ranch in Santa Cruz to
get proper training under saddle with Deb Cooper and her fine trainers.
We had them in training with Deb for six months. Not because of Deb,
but because of Lover Boy. It took that long to make him safe for me to
ride him. Lucas was easy, they just had to teach him to go, he is very
slow. Lucas was ready to come home in two months. Lover Boy took out
their metal arena gate, one arena wall, numerous stall doors, not to
mention almost killing Shauna many times.
Deb broke her arm after we arrived, so Shauna Brantley did much of
Lover Boy's training under Deb's direction. Marga Bouten, Deb's
partner, also helped train both horses under Deb's direction, until Deb
could mend her arm. Of course Deb got back to work too soon and broke
her arm again. Then the next time I drove up to the ranch, she was back
at work again, riding Lover Boy. She is a real' diehard'. They
nicknamed Lover Boy "Krakatau" after the volcano.
I fondly tell my husband, I consider the time that Lover Boy spent at
Moon Valley Ranch as my life insurance policy. Deb has the best timing
of any horse person I have ever seen train under saddle. Shauna
literally read Lover Boy's mind and allowed him to run out his energy,
on a loose rein; something he really couldn't believe she would let him
do, and he really enjoyed it! He was so used to people ripping his
mouth out to try and stop him. To be 'allowed' to run was something new
to him. Shauna would just direct him with a carrot stick and he turned
on a dime! We video taped it and to this day, I don't know how she
stayed on! We joked that she must have put glue in her saddle. Of
course we have seen her ride other horses and know by now that she has
the best independent seat of any rider we have ever seen. Marga gave
Lover Boy lots of love, something he wasn't used to getting from
trainers. Deb, Shauna, Marga, and the other trainers that rode him,
gave him love, discipline and lots of strokes and encouragement, which
really helped in bringing him around. I can't thank them enough for
giving me a 'real' horse instead of a mental case. We are riding the
trails in Malibu now, just my husband and I, with no other horses
along, and yesterday Lover Boy and Lucas rode into this 2 foot wide,
walled-with-scrubs trail, with a steep drop off, and stood in a 3 foot
deep pool under a 50 foot high crashing waterfall and they just loved
it! We had a hard time trying to get them to leave! They were splashing
around in the water with their hooves and mouths like a couple of kids.
Lucas can maintain his gaits now and Lover Boy has stopped bolting. He
is still a nervous horse but he is very brave and leads the way all the
time. We are hoping that a little bit of Lucas will rub off on Lover
Boy eventually. They are 4 years old now and it's like we are riding 20
year old seasoned horses. I just wanted you to know that you have a
wonderful program and some pretty darn special trainers. The best in
the world, in our opinion! We intend to do our 7 games every time
before we ride, for the rest of our lives. Our horses (especially Lover
Boy) thank you and we thank you. We are forever in your debt.
With very warm regards,
Donald and Christina Kowalewsky