Reining in success

If you've been riding reining horses for awhile, and you've had plenty of horse show experience, what are you going to learn from a college online horse training course?

"You learn a lot, from basic techniques to some very helpful advanced training methods," says Susan Dahl-Mitchell of Burgessville, Ontario, Canada. "I really loved the online availability of the material and the self-paced system."

The riding and showing of reining horses is nothing new to Dahl-Mitchell; she's been doing it for nearly a decade. To most of her friends, she is known as "ReinerSue."
Dahl-Mitchell recently completed Training Performance Horses and received her "certificate of recognition" from Allegany College of Maryland. The course is taught by author/trainer Don Blazer and is offered online by four colleges. To see a sample of the course text and get registration details log onto www.donblazer.com

"The course is very thorough, with well-written instructions and plenty of photos. In my opinion, the course is excellent for adult learning because it has theory, then a practice session, followed by both a true-false and narrative quiz," says Dahl-Mitchell. Students get each lesson by e-mail, study the lesson, and then complete a quiz which is reviewed by Blazer and returned with comments. When the quiz is completed, the student gets the next lesson.

If students have a specific problem, they contact Blazer by e-mail for immediate, individual help.

The course certainly met all my expectations, she said. "I wanted to learn to train performance horses, and I sure did."

Dahl-Mitchell is planning to use her performance horse training talents professionally. She is currently building a new training facility, which she hopes will be operational by this summer.