Tracey crossed into new territory in this episode of ‘Hitting Your Stride’, as she welcomes Caleb Clingen to the show. A well-known and highly respected multi-discipline horse trainer who also happens to be an elite barrel racer, this first-generation horseman provides the foundational training horses will eventually need, regardless of which discipline they are ridden in.
A horse is a horse; different breeds may have different conformation, but they all start the same way and Caleb focuses on the development of fundamentals with each to build them from the ground up. He goes into detail about the work he does with each horse, how he develops ‘buttons’ for each because every horse communicates the same way, whether they are a Warmblood or a Quarter Horse.
One of the biggest topics Tracey and Caleb talk about is leadership and how all horses respond to it – as Caleb says, a leader has to lead and not force the horse into anything. By giving it that crucial element in the horse/rider relationship, allowing the horse to think it’s ‘their idea’ to do something, the bond deepens and the mindset is forged as a future building block.