Naomi,

Thanks for posting your experience with Larry Whitesell. He is coming to our
area in May and I am looking forward to auditing his clinic here. Several
good friends of mine who also ride gaited horses, raved about his clinic.
Though I am the only one in our Paso Fino club who does c/t, these friends
are very supportive of me using it. Anyway, I look forward to seeing Larry
here. It sounds as though he has a very soft way about him. Thank you for
your info about him!
Cheers,
Nancy in CO
--
Our blog about our son and horses at http://theseanproject.blogspot.com

Last summer I had a positive experience in a 5 day clinic with a gaited
horse trainer named Larry Whitesell. I was riding George, my
suspicious-of-men gelding. On the first day Larry announced that throughout
the clinic he was going to walk up to George and praise him when he was
standing quietly. When we started doing lateral ground work Larry noticed
that George was stiffer on one side. Larry took the leadrope but then gave
it back to me and said that he would talk me through it because George was
still a little concerned about him. By the end of the 5 days George was
relaxed and happy to have Larry ride him. I was delighted that George seemed
to quickly adapt to being in a clickerless environment (except for jackpots
at the end of the day); the key I think is having a clinician who is wise,
respectful of riders and horses and doesn't have aggressive energy or an axe
to grind.
The interesting thing about Larry is that even though he said he had looked
at clicker training and decided that he didn't want to use treats, he was
very complementary about George's progress and loved George's trick of
picking up his rubber feed dish and giving it to me.

Naomi