As a member of the Wisconsin State Horse Council, rider participant in the 2015 Midwest Horse Fair and owner of several horses, thank you for the two new facilities, appreciation to all the clinicians and volunteers for all their hard work and genuine gratitude to all who helped plan, prepare, conduct and conclude this most epic weekend.
I wish to take a moment to express sincere appreciation for asking Ray Ainsworth to be a clinician at the 2015 Midwest Horse Fair (MWHF) held April 17-18-19 in Madison WI. This was the first time I met Ray. Both my husband and I were genuinely amazed and impressed with his keen eye and perceptive ability to quickly read, assess, diagnose and resolve issues in both horse and owner with resistance-free techniques. Seeking help with starting a 23 month old American Quarter Horse filly, I watched his first colt starting session on Friday and was amazed in what he could accomplish in short order. He’s the real deal. His ‘down home’ innate ability to inspire the owner, listen to each horse and share his knowledge with the audience in easy to follow and remember ‘You can too’ steps is ama-ZING!
My barrel horse, Twist, was not acting right. So much so, that it got to the point that it was actually extremely dangerous. People were even offering us money not to bring her to run!
I had lost a lot of confidence in her, and I was just about to get a young horse to start instead. There was a friend of ours that had sent a horse to Ray and said, ‘you should just give him a shot.’
When Becky Shady and her grandfather pulled up at Blain’s Farm and Fleet in Dubuque, Iowa, they had on their trailer three Becky and Ruby 2young horses that had never so much as been touched. Within two hours, Ray had not only been able to place his hands on “Mustang Sally,” the first of the young horses, he had haltered her, saddled her, dewormed her, taught her how to load in and out of the trailer and sat on her back for the very first time.
Ray saved my Stargazer as a 6-year-old. Stargazer is a purebred Polish Arabian who we had had at five different boarding and training facilities around our area. None of them worked for him.
I knew something was wrong with my horse. He had started not wanting to come out of the paddock with other people, not wanting to come out of his stall, flying backward in the aisle. He was lunging at people any time they came near his stall; he cowkicked two trainers. He was so dangerous that even the barn help didn’t want to handle him – just really, really aggressive. He was to the point where he was going to hurt somebody or even kill somebody.
[I came to Ray’s clinic] with a yearling stud colt that I just purchased. He had nothing done with him. He has loaded in the trailer, and you can walk him around and pick up his feet, but that was it. And I also had a 4-year-old mare named Phoenix. Every time I was riding, I would get her up to a trot, and she would kick-out. So that was her problem.