From my window seat, my eyes followed along as a river laced its way through the quilted patchwork of the Canadian prairies. I was flying to Winnipeg, Manitoba en-route to the Bar K Ranch, where I was scheduled to do a three-day horsemanship clinic.

I was traveling with the lovely Janet Werstroh we all know from the head offices of “Horses… Naturally” with Jay O’Jay in Calgary Alberta. Yes, Janet was truly excited about leaving the city behind and immersing herself into the lifestyle of a 16,000-acre working cattle ranch. And may I add; a ranch that is very well known for its foundation bred quarter horses and breeding program. Click here to check out their website.

I was impressed with the natural ease with which Janet calmly turned off the buzz of urban living, allowing herself to fall into the day-to-day routines of this working ranch. Let me put it to you this way; her jeans were dirtier than mine at the end of each day and I don’t think she even noticed.

Just in case you’re wondering! Janet was traveling with me mainly because she was going to be taking photographs of all the different aspects of the clinic; including all the participants, their horse and whatever else she had time for. I was amazed; in three days Janet took over 1800 images! Now she has the tedious task of editing, sorting and burning selected images onto CD discs to send out to all those who made requests. My bet is that the next time she travels with me, the amount of photos taken will be considerably less.

The images attached to this blog are Janet’s, so if you like them please drop her a line and let her know. We will also be adding more of her images throughout the web site – see if you can identify them.

As we disembarked from the airplane and headed over to pick up our baggage, the anticipation of getting to the Bar K Ranch caused me to tingle with excitement. I truly was looking forward to meeting up with all the people and all the horses that would be taking part in this spring tune-up clinic.

There she was, I spotted her right away! Susan Kopec was waiting for us at the bottom of the escalator. And as we made our way over to her with the mounds of baggage we were packing, I could feel the warmth of her welcome reaching out to us from across the room. I could tell this was going to be a good clinic!

From their family owned and operated Bar K Ranch, Susan and her husband David Kopec were my clinic hosts for what was being officially named the “Spring Tune-Up Clinic”. Their hospitality was second to none. I even got to stay in an attached cabin to the main house with lots of room to spread out my traveling gear and relax.

David and Susan had all the bases covered, right from a portable round pen set up in the indoor arena, a quality sound system, bleachers for the spectators and, they even had the parents of local 4H kids cooking up great lunches.

Right from trailer parking, camp sites, stabling and portable toilets, nothing was overlooked. Heck, they even had an evening trail ride planed for those who cared to join in. We actually rode home under the light of a full moon – hard to beat!

In my humble opinion, being aware of the needs of others is a good thing, but doing something about it deserves to be commended.

“Win a Colt”! For five bucks you could buy a ticket in an effort to raise money for the “Riding for the Disabled”. The Bar K Ranch donated the newborn foal for this draw, but the interesting part was that there were approximately 52 foals to choose from. That’s right, there were 52 brood mares in their foaling pasture and every morning of the clinic, there was sure to be the cutest newborn baby found standing along side its mother.

Monique, a clinic participant, won the contest draw and when I saw her last, she was still walking amongst all those newborns scratching her head. A bit confusing for sure – good luck with your decision Monique!

Staying with David and Susan at the Bar K Ranch was an exceptional experience for me. I think the intentions behind all we do in life speak louder than any words and are a direct reflection of our integrity and self worth. I hope they know how much I appreciated those days I spent in Winnipeg, and that I can’t wait to return again in the fall.

August 2-5/07

For those of you who don’t know “Big Valley Jamboree” is an outside country music festival that is held each year at Camrose, Alberta. The unofficial word is that they get approximately 30 thousand people attending each day.

For more information visit their web site at: www.bigvalleyjamboree.com

This year “Steak & Beans Horse Trailer Company ” & “Sundowner Horse Trailers” made arrangements for me to come out to Big Valley Jamboree to demonstrate both my colt starting and horsemanship program. For each of my performances they asked different questions about Sundowner Horse Trailers and Jay O’Jay Horsemanship - they also rewarded the correct answers with $20.00 & $50.00 bills. These demonstrations where held in the Bulls for Breakfast Arena each and every day of the event.

For more information on Steak & Beans Horse Trailer Company visit them at: www.steakandbeanstrailer.ca

I arrived a day early to give myself time to set up my booth and campsite. This of course gave my two horses, Cisco & Coco a chance to stretch out their legs, settle in and check out the new environment they would be working in for the next few days.

A Behind the Scenes Report:

To make a long story short - with the “help” of my staff - Sara Leppington, her daughters Becka & Jackie and my right hand man Mathew Ford Twogood - the show came off without a hitch.

From bathing, grooming, feeding and exercising the horses - to setting up and running the booth - right to the countless number of details that had to be covered each day - these dedicated folks proved that without them the show could not go on. To them I offer my sincere gratitude.

Day One:

On day one I had a real nice quite soft minded filly to work with. Her name was “Suggie” (short for sugar) and I spent about 45 minutes working with her in the round pen. Because of her temperament I had plenty of time to discuss what I was doing and why I was doing it. I got as far as putting a saddle on her without her bucking, plus I started to work on my exercises for respect and control. Through the entire process “Suggie” consistently grew more and more braver and confident.
For the last 15 minutes of my allotted time I worked with my two horses Cisco and Coco. Cisco is 3 years old now and has about 20 rides on him. Coco is 4 years old - I started him last year and he is finally starting to grow into a seasoned horse.

You know, for me training horses is always a work in progress - there never is an end to it. It seems that once I get my horses to a certain level of training, I’m back at the drawing board to plan out the next level training, and on and on it goes.

With that being said, my goal at Big Valley Jamboree was to show the incredible connection that I have with my two horses. To do this I did a liberty act where Cisco was totally free to leave me at anytime if he wanted to, no strings attached.

As I rode Coco, I had Cisco at my side as we walked, trotted and loped around the arena. We did big circles, small circles, sliding stops and back ups. At one point I had Cisco stand with all four feet on a small pedestal and stay there as Coco and I loped around the arena. I finished off with having Cisco bow for the audience. What beautiful horses they are - I’m so proud of them.

Day Two:

What can I say! I was happy working with “Suggie” but it seemed as though everyone else want me to have a challenge and work with a horse that was more of a “wild thing”.

So for my second session in the round pen I worked with “Blue Rose” an un-broke Thoroughbred. She was a big grey roan with a soft eye and to everyone’s surprise, very quiet and mellow. I got quite a bit accomplished in our 45 minute session, but even though I spent a lot of time desensitizing Blue Rose and preparing her for a cinch, she bucked when I put the saddle on. This is not a bad thing, I figure if a horse has the urge to buck then I want her to get it out of their system before I swing a leg over the saddle.

Again, I ended with another liberty session with my two horses Cisco & Coco.

Day Three:

When it rains, it pours! We had great weather right up until the announcer said “Ladies and Gentlemen” please welcome “Jay O’Jay”.

He no sooner got the words out of his mouth and a cloud burst wide open on us. It rained so hard at one point I had mini water falls cascading off of my cowboy hat.

The good news is that only a hand full of people left, everyone else stayed and got as wet as I did. The bad news was that Blue Rose had come up lame. So there I was standing in the rain with a lame horse! I couldn’t round pen the horse so I did some very light halter work before I swung a leg over the saddle - just to prove she could be rode.

Day Four:

Blue Rose was still too lame to work with, but at least the sun was back out and shining down on us.

For this session in the round pen I brought out Cisco, my three year old and I talked up a storm not only with my philosophy of training, but I also did demonstrations on the ground as well as in the saddle.

Summary:

I have to say that I had a blast at Big Valley Jamboree and that I met a lot of very interesting people who were very appreciative of Jay O’Jay Horsemanship

The good news is that I will be back again next year. See you there!