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So I was gratified to hear about
a real horseman who holds kids camps in which
they are actually taught horsemanship, control, equitational
skills and real
riding. Where kids really learn. Dan
Keen grew up on a ranch in Fayette County and
got a love of horses early. He started roping as
a kid, then went on to competitive team roping,
blacksmithing and race horse training. This
combination and a understanding of horses and
technique with them led him to reconditioning
and retraining them.
From his ranch in Round Top and
his father's ranch nearby in Ledbetter, Dan and
his wife Kelley teach people and horses how to
be partners, be safe, and have fun. hold
clinics, weekends, retreats and camps. He trains
everything from dressage warmbloods to jumpers
and barrel horses. For the horse, he goes back
to a good solid foundation of listening to the
rider -- he'll take a $30,000 dressage horse and
ride him around the ranch, work cattle on him,
swim him through the lake and work him through
his unique obstacle course. Suddenly, Mr. High Dollah
is a much better riding horse. For the rider, he
teaches them the basic control skills and
communication and then takes them through
confidence building exercises, whether it
working corriente steers in the arena or
going through the obstacle course.
The course is water obstacles,
jumps, high hills, embankments, a board bridge
and teeter totter, a shredded hanging "curtain"
and a long trench the horse must walk through.
When I arrived at Double Tree
Ranch on Friday I saw nine adorable girls, age
9-12, with unruly horses that had little
respect for their little riders. They would pull
every trick in the book, bucking, bolting, not
going, not whoaing, not standing still, throwing
their heads, and so on. One kid that really got
to my heart was a little red-headed waif named
Katie who was riding a muscly paint Mustang
who knew he could out-muscle her and did at
every opportunity. He had bolted with her
several times and she'd gone off him several
times. She had no stop on him, and he knew it.
She was fearful, for good reason.
The first thing that happened in
the 3-ring circus Friday was Dan showed each
girl how to get their horse to yield their head
to them. First with ground work, and then with
the simple one-rein lift. Mustang boy resisted
of course, bowing his neck and locking up,
dragging Katie around, even bringing her to
tears twice, but she kept with him, and Dan kept
with them, and rider and horse finally got
there. It was an amazing transition. Mustang boy
went from disrespect, dunking her in the pond
and bolting when he saw the cows, to a whole new
horse the next day: listening to her and doing
what she asked with control and rate. The best
part was seeing the tears and fear go to smiles
on Katie's face. "You fix the little things and
the big things go away, " Dan told her.
"Horses are professional
reactors, they're fright animals, and they want
to do what they want to do, " Dan explained to
the girls. "We're going to teach your horse how
to
think instead of just react. I want
to see you ride that horse as one. When he zigs,
you zig. When he zags, you zag. You've
got to have a good go button, a good
whoa button and good speed control."
When I first saw that the camp
was only three days, Friday to Sunday, and cost
$400, to be honest, I thought that was pricey.
And yet, at the end of the last day, as I
watched those little girls gallop their horses
through an obstacle course most adults couldn't
get their horses
halfway through, and did it timed in
five minutes (one of them barefoot because "my
boots rub me") -- I knew it was probably the
best four hundred bucks those parents ever
spent. Those horses zigged when the kids said
zig and zagged when they said zag. And the kids
were right with them, just like real partners
....
...............................
There are intermediate and
advanced kid camps and adult weekends coming up
July - Sept. Also a ladies riding retreat
Sept. 14-16.
www.dankeenhorsemanship.com
p.s. Dan is the nephew of Robert
Earl Keen, Texas singer songwriter.
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