About me: All my life I've been fascinated with horses. When I was a kid, I used to walk by the pasture at Bonnetti Ranch in south San Jose where I grew up to feed their horses grass over the fence. I was frequently late for school and would get in hot water, but wasn't deterred. When I was 18, I moved to Florida and began working in the thoroughbred racing industry. I was a groom in breeding barns, training barns, I worked the sales, you name it. I met a lot of trainers and horse people, and found that everyone has a different style of doing things. Over the years, I developed my own style and philosophy of horse training. I began working  for private clients, specializing in ground manners for young foals. Eventually, I moved back to California and bought two young mustangs. These fillies had been born wild and never handled by a human until around 5-6 months of age. At first, they couldn't be approached at all. Now that I've had them for almost a year, you can see the change. They've taught me the meaning of patience and consistency, that great rewards come from owning horses when you take the time to understand them. With this in mind, I've decided to once again offer my services to the public!

My training philosophy: There are two cornerstones to my philosophy on training horses. One is patience. I have found that there's a new pervasive attitude in the horse  community (I blame famous clinicians) that if you just follow ten easy steps, you can teach a wild horse to be ridden in a half hour. Coupled with a natural tendency to want to get things done as quickly as possible, it causes many horse owners to move too fast and expect too much from their horses. To use an analogy, I also study Brazilian Jiu-jitsu. During a training session, my coach will sometimes show me several techniques in a row. I may be able to repeat them once, right at that moment before forgetting them. It's only when we break down the art into a few techniques at a time, and I practice them over and over, that it sinks in. Then, I'm able to use the simpler techniques as a foundation for learning more advanced ones. I believe that this is because the brain needs time to form new connections. I once heard a saying about horses. It goes "If you act like you only have five minutes, it'll take all day. If you act like you have all day, it'll take five minutes". That's what I mean by patience. Allowing the horse as much time as he needs to "get it".

My other cornerstone principle is developing strong leading responses. I believe that if you teach the horse to follow you no matter what happens, you can get him to do anything. That includes some of the more notorious difficulties that people encounter such as trailer loading and having their feet handled. To accomplish this I do lots of in-hand work and acclimatization to being handled before moving on to anything "scary". I've found, that if I've firmly established myself as being the leader I have very little difficulty with these things.

What I offer: I specialize in training ground manners such as: Trailer loading, farrier and vet work, tying, leading, catching in the pasture, grooming. I also correct vices such as: biting, kicking, rearing up, running away, pulling back, and running over the handler. I do all of my training on-site. NEW! I'm now offering lessons to horse owners on handling their horses after I leave. When the horse's primary handler (you) learns to interact in the same way as the trainer, the effectiveness of the training is maximized. I decided to include this service because I've found that the most rewarding results come when both horse and handler learn to work together.

What it costs : Both the horse training and handler coaching sessions are $30/hr, including a $0.25/mile fuel charge. I also offer package deals of 5 sessions for $25/hr.

How long does it take?: It entirely depends on the horse, the behavior in question, and how long they've been doing the wrong thing. Generally speaking though, I usually get good results within 5-10 sessions. The sessions themselves generally run about an hour, but again it depends on the horse. I am oriented by results rather than time, so basically I let the horse tell me when he's had enough.

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