vaquerotrainingcenter Information

Ive always felt very fortunate to have been born to the situation I was, and to be exposed to the life style I grew up in. Almost everything about my life has some relevance to the horse. Theyve been a part of my life, in one way or another, since I hit the ground. My folks had a 1,000 acre horse operation in Sierra Valley in the northern California mountains where they ran upwards of 120 brood mares consisting mostly of Quarter Horses, Appaloosas, and Welsh ponies. After my folks split up and sold the ranch when I was 11, my brothers and I went to Mexico with Dad where he started ranching in Culiacan, Sinaloa. After 5 years of Mexican adventures, I came back to the U.S. to finish high school, heading to the family cattle ranch in Marysville, California (my brothers, cousins, and myself being the 5th generation on the ranch) to hang my hat for a while. The next several years I spent playing with horses, rodeoing some, working cattle quite a bit, doing some horse showing, and generally having a good time. I spent some time in my late teens and early twenties picking the brains of a few trainers I admired, swapping riding their colts and problem horses for knowledge. It was a good bargain for both of us. In 1981 I was hired to come train horses for an outfit in Connecticut (never having been east of the Rockies before that, I had to look at a map just to see where it was located), so I loaded up my dogs and gear in the truck, and headed east. About a year later, after a few requests from people, I decided to start my own training business. Since then Ive been in my own little world, training horses, helping them, and learning from them. All through my life growing up, Ive been exposed to the California Vaqueros traditions of horsemanship, through story and by example. Of all the things Ive been around, that made the biggest impression on me, and has always been a major factor in my work. Although there wasnt much call for traditional vaquero horsemanship (jaquima a freno) in the east, the philosophies have ...