Horse trainer Kade Mills from Sundre Alta. is one of three trainers invited to take part in a 2022 Trainer’s Challenge at the Everything Equine on the Border event at LloydEx on April 8-10. Supplied Photo
Hold your horses. The Lloydminster Exhibition Association is looking for four unridden three-year-old fillies and geldings to pull off a Trainer’s Challenge at Everything Equine on the Border, April 8-10.
The horses will be paired with Alberta trainers Kade Mills, Travis Beaton and Rod Olsen in a three-day head-to-head horse training competition with one horse as a spare.
“We have three trainers compete by working with an unbroken filly or gelding throughout the three days of the event in a round pen and then take them to the arena to show what they have,” explained LloydEx agriculture manager, Shelly Ann Dodgson.
The trainer’s challenge is packaged with an equine-based trade show and clinics in western horsemanship and English jumping at the exhibition grounds.
Dodgson says there is not another event like this within 300 kilometres of Lloydminster.
“There’s going to be a trade show and different sessions hosted by our veterinarians. Saddles, fashion you name it—we’ll probably be able to find it for you,” she said.
In the meantime, event organizers are inviting local horse owners to apply to provide quarter horses and paints.
“We’re looking for western pleasure riding horses,” said Dodgson.
A rider selection committee will pick the best ones for the trainer’s competition.
“By the end of the week, they will be able to ride them. That’s the plan. They start with a colt and in three days they get the horse to where they can saddle and ride,” said Dodgson.
The judges will select one of the three to win the trainers’ challenge with the prize yet to be determined aside from the recognition that goes with it.
This is a spectator event that should attract a lot of horse enthusiasts who will get to see how horse training is actually done.
Everything Equine and the trainers’ stress, it can actually take months to fully train a new mount.
“It’s not like Yellowstone,” joked Dodgson, referring to the TV mini-series where cowboys jump on bucking broncos and tame them in a matter of seconds.
She says each trainer at Everything Equine has their own tricks and their own way of doing it.
“You’re going to learn how to calm a horse down, how to get them acquainted with you, haltering, leading and building trust with your horse, then going into saddling and getting them used to noise and different things,” explained Dodgson.
She says people in the stands get to see how they work with horses so they can go home and work on their own horses.
Dodgson says the response to the entire event has been really good and they are getting lots of applications to participate in the two riding clinics.
“It’s our first time holding it, so we will be hoping for as many people to come as possible,” she said.
“We have a really strong light horse sector locally— everything from your English to your Western disciplines.”
A Western horsemanship clinic will be hosted by Bronwyn and Jason Irwin from Ontario, who operate their own business teaching clinics and demonstrate at horse expos They are stars of the TV show The Horse Trainers.
The Irwins teach everything from colt starting to liberty training, problem-solving, barrel racing, pole bending and trick training.
Alexander Grayton, a Canadian show jumping rider, trainer, and clinician, based in Calgary will head up the English riding clinic.
