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History of Wild Horse Workshops:
The concept of holding a week long wild horse workshop was first developed by
the Lamms of KBR with Barbara Eustiss-Cross of the Life Foundation in
1998. The workshops included adoptions and a week of actual wild horse gentling and training activities.
Interested parties could enroll to participate "hands on" in the workshop as well as spectate.
John Sharp, Frank Bell, 1SG Mark Atwood (US Army), Dennis Bright and Lesley Neuman were part of
the original clinician staff. Cher Eastep of Colorado and Robert Denlinger of Kentucky joined the
gentling team in 1999 and added demonstrations on clicker training. Hue Simpson of California has been part of the
group since its inception, presenting her "Focus Training" techniques which are based in part on TTeam.
The workshop emphasis has been to develop, demonstrate and teach low impact approaches to humanely
gentle the animals without damaging their self confidence and spirit.
A variety of activities take place involving animals in various stages of the gentling
and training process.
WHW 2000:
We followed a similar format with WHW 2000. The primary clinicians demonstrated various
gentling techniques. Hands-on participants were allowed to work with horses that
were determined to be safe to work with. As the week progressed, there were multiple activities
in participants partook including more advancedhandling techniques.
Joyce North and Randle Thomson were back to run the Wild Horse Cafe and with JCFG's great kitchen,
we enjoiyed good, hot meals in the November weather. (The menu can be seen by clicking
here.)
The BLM portion of the workshop involved the Caņon City (Colorado) district.
About 20 horses were brought in for the week of gentling and handling and were
offered up for adoption. Additional truckloads of horses and burros were for
brought in for a larger adoption adoption at the conclusion of the workshop.
Country singer Lacy J. Dalton, herself a wild horse adopter, put on an
awesome accoustic benefit concert on Friday night along with her very
talented companions, accompaniest Steven Earl Swinford and her husband Aaron Anderson.
Lacy and Aaron run the
"Let 'em Run" Foundation in Nevada. They brought
"Lacy and Friends'"
Wild Horse Crossing cassettes and CDs which the crowd
bought up, the proceeds going to Virginia Range Wildlife Protection Association
and Wild Horse Mentors programs.
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