Top Clinicians Compete in Road to the Horse

3 Days – Murfreesboro, TN – February 25 – 27

Road to the Horse – the World Championship of Colt Starting – is a one-of-a-kind experience that combines education and entertainment for an all-out horsemanship experience. This year’s competition pits three internationally known, elite horse trainers/clinicians/whisperers against each other for the esteemed title of Road to the Horse Champion. These three competitors choose a horse out of the remuda, and begin building a relationship between horse and human. Unlike a horse show, these competitors are judged not only on a final test of skill, but the means to the end result. The goal of Road to the Horse is to teach horsemen and women that natural horsemanship is a kinder, gentler way of working with horses.

2011 Competitors:

Pat Parelli

Obsessed with horses at an early age, Pat began working in stables at age 9.  Enthusiastically helping with whatever he could, he even started to develop ideas about raising foals and training horses.  Throughout his life, Pat worked the rodeo circuit, training horses, and competing in reining and cutting events with both horses and mules.  In 1983, while performing bridleless at the California Livestock Symposium, Pat met three men who would significantly contribute to his horsemanship knowledge and become his mentors:  Tom Dorrance, Ray Hunt and Ronnie Willis.  A few years later, leading equine behaviorist Dr.  R. M. Miller, while watching one of Pat’s bridle-less demonstrations, predicted that Pat would become one of the best horsemen and teachers the world had known.

Chris Cox

Chris Cox’s entire life has been influenced by his relationship with the horse.  “Being around horses has been as natural to me as breathing,” Chris says in his book, Ride the Journey.  He started his first colt in his early teens and went on to excel in his horsemanship studies in college.  At eighteen, Cox began training mustangs for the US Bureau of Land Management.  Throughout the next couple of decades, Cox took in horses to train and began to devise what has become his trademark program – a step by step progression of skills for all levels of horsemen to improve their horsemanship.

Today, at his Diamond Double C Ranch near Mineral Wells, Texas, Cox offers horsemanship clinics year round.

Clinton Anderson

Raised in Australia, Clinton Anderson started his love of horses at age 6, his family purchased his first horse at 9 and he began attending horsemanship clinics at 12.  At age 15, Anderson apprenticed with nationally acclaimed clinician and horse trainer, Gordon McKinlay.  Over the next two years, he started and trained over 600 horses under Gordon’s guidance.  In 1997, Anderson moved to the US where he began training, touring and conducting clinics.  In 2001, he became the first horse trainer to launch a “made for TV” weekly training program.  The use of untrained horses helped make his show the network’s most popular equine program.

Today, Clinton operates Downunder Horsemanship, located in Stephenville, Texas, and continues to teach, train and compete.

Even if you can’t attend in person this weekend, you can catch a live internet webcast of the event.  Just go to www.roadtothehorse.com on February 25 – 27 and follow the provided webcast link.

Location:

Tennessee Miller Coliseum

304 W. Thompson Ln #B

Murfreesboro, TN 37129