Dan James is best known for Liberty work, and showed us an amazing bond he has with all his horses, working up to 5 horses at Liberty all at the same time! He also stood up on two of his horses rumps and cantered them around with no bridle! My daughter Ada, who helped me at the booth, was chosen as a volunteer for one of Dan’s demos, and got to ride his horse while having another horse circle her at liberty. The horses were used in the TV show Heartland. You can watch a recap of The International Liberty Festival and Ada’s interview about her volunteering in Dan’s Demo on Better Horses TV, The Cowboy Channel and RFDTV that airs November 21st at 2PM CST. Replays will be on Better Horses’ YouTube channel
Dan James and his horses
Ada’s Interview with Better Horses TV
Warwick Schiller introduced the crowd to his new form of Horsemanship, called Attuned Horsemanship. He showed us how horses follow thoughts, and he was able to use a flag to get the horses attention, and then have them follow the direction of their thoughts through use of the flag just by acknowledging the horse and its most subtle of cues, such as a slight ear flick. I love how Horsemanship really is so simple. We don’t need to run their legs off first, just to get them to tune in. We just need to tune in to their smallest of cues, and our horses really respect that, and start to tune in to us more! They have a lot to say if we listen!
Warwick Schiller tuning in to his horse
Pat Parelli put on several entertaining and informative demos on his Principles of Natural Horsemanship. He is very good and helping people who have no knowledge of horsemanship follow a program to get you to better understand how horses think and how it helps to train them. He said his motivation is to help as many horses and people as he can worldwide. He also gave a shout out to trying out therapies for your horse, especially Far Infrared Products, and how they can help horses feel more comfortable and help with your training.
Not only were there demonstrations, but also competitors came from all over to compete in the International Liberty Horse Show. Over the three days, competitors competed in several liberty classes, from Green Horse Liberty and Leadline, to Advanced liberty with multiple horses. The top fifteen came back to perform their freestyle Saturday night. What a wonderful display of the horse and rider connection! There were so many great acts it was hard to pick a favorite.
