Volcan Panama Horsemanship Clinic

Sunday, June 9th, BearPaw Performance Horses, hosted by La Pomme and Chemy.

Mike with Cowboy.

Mary Ann with her new Quarter Horse "Shining".

We had a little excitement when a newly cut stallion decided this just wasn't how he wanted to spend his Sunday.

Mike getting the big guy under control.

Instructor: Mike Shipley grew up in the Midwest, but moved to Washington state in 1985, where he lived and worked until retiring and moving to Panama in October of 2011. He brought with him to Panama two of his favorite horses and his two cow dogs. His whole adult life has been devoted to breeding, raising, training and showing horses in a variety of Western classes and activities at Open, AQHA, ApHA (Appaloosa) and APHA (Paint) shows and events as well as regional club cuttings and cattle sortings. One of his horses, on which he will be demonstrating, is Lenas Smoken Dry (a.k.a. “Cowboy”),a breeding Paint stallion from strong working quarter horse lines, who has been trained and shown in roping, cutting, working cow horse and cattle sorting events. Cowboy was the Oregon Paint Horse Association Reserve High Point Senior Horse in 2007 with a limited amount of showing. Mike’s approach to training horses has evolved over the years and is intent on building a foundation in each horse through clear and consistent communication and control that builds the horse’s confidence and ability one step at a time. He believes that every rider and horse, no matter what their discipline (Western or English, Rodeo or Trail riding), can benefit from learning to gain their horse’s confidence and respect from ground work exercises that flow into the training that is done in the saddle. His goal is to build a rider’s confidence by teaching them how to lay the foundation in training their horse in a way that establishes effective and consistent communication between horse and rider which produces a horse that, when finished, is safe, willing, confident and light to handle and produces a confident rider who has control of the total horse and its movements, all the time, with a minimum of effort. (A thank you to Chemy and the folks at La Pomme for allowing the clinic to be held at their facility. It is greatly appreciated)
Cellular (507)6381-9530  E-MAIL Bearpawph@gmail.com