Cowboy uses horse sense
Muscatine Journal
Nov. 17, 1993
Preacher, poet and cowboy David Skipworth had a special touch
when it comes to training horses, whether they’re
“ornery” colts or wild mustangs.
Skipworth, a horse trainer for 25 years, recently moved from Colorado to forest Hill Farms in Muscatine, where he has begun to use his “soft hand” training technique.
“We’re going to put Muscatine on the map now, with David here,” said Forest Hill Farm owner Sharon Glass.
Together, Glass and Skipworth are running several programs at the farm, located on Highway 22, including individual and group riding lessons, a new 4-H club and weekly competitions and races.
An Ordained minister from the Southwestern Baptist Theological Seminary in Fort Worth, Texas, Skipworth holds worship meeting Sunday mornings at the farm.
He also writes and performs “cowboy poetry,” and had appeared on same stages as Charlie Daniels and Johnny Cash.
“We want to bring Western culture to Muscatine,” Skipworth said. “We want to show people cowboy culture.”
Skipworth has developed the “soft hand” technique over the past five year, using the horse’s own environment and methods of communication as a starting point
The old approach of “breaking” a horse is a thing of the past, Skipworth said. “What you’re doing is forcing the animal to yield or bend or break,” he said. “We should be able to communicate with the horse in his atmosphere and language.”
“Let’s help this horse learn, instead of getting out here and being ‘Mr. Mach,’” he said. “What we’re trying to do is, we’re trying to put trust in them, not fear.”
Rather than
trying to break a horse’s spirit, Skipworth said, he works to build confidence
and trust between horse and rider, who must be able to communicate with each
other just as two people converse.
“In order for us to understand and work with and communicate with each other, we have to speak the same language,” Skipworth said. “A horse will tell you exactly where he needs working and where he needs training.”
Skipworth used signals which are natural to the horse. For example, to calm it down, he pets the horse’s side, where a mare nuzzles her colt. To make the horse run, he raises his hands in the air - a horse will naturally run away is something gets above it.
“Everything I do has a purpose,” he said. Skipworth said his technique not only works with domestic horses, but he has trained wild mustangs, which were once thought to be unmanageable.
He has also had amazing success in changing the behavior of “problem” horses. The key, he said, is using effective communication and repetition.
“It’s like a computer,” said Skipworth. “We erase all the bad entries and we reprogram positive entries.”
Forest
Hill Farms Equestrian Center