A top Equine Behavior educator is coming to Fernie for a two-day clinic on training horses.
Dr. Andrew McLean has written international best sellers on the topic and is in high demand worldwide as a coach and lecturer.
He is in Canada speaking at the Horse Council BC Equine Education Conference and will then come to Fernie for the clinic on January 24 and 25.
McLean has spent much of his life working with horses. He grew up on King Island, Australia, then studied in Tasmania, competing in show jumping and dressage at all levels.
He realised not much was known about how horses think, so he completed a PhD to further explore it.
Andrew's book, The Truth About Horses is a distillation of his PhD thesis, and shows the huge potential in using behavioural science in training horses. Adopting these principals dramatically increases the number of horses that are able to effectively learn what we intend to teach them.
Last October, Andrew was a member of the research team that won the
Eureka Prize for Research that Contributes to Animal Protection for
their work on whipping racehorses. Their research showed that whipping
a horse in the last 300m doesn't make the horse go any faster. Until
now there wasn't any evidence based research to prove otherwise, thus
changes could not be made. The goal with Andrew's work is to provide
an ethical and sustainable training method that works with any equine
discipline.
Andrew was invited to re-train the Belgian Mounted Police (the biggest
mounted section in Europe) in 2011 in a five-day clinic to embed
equitation science in their training.
He has been asked to return in 2012. The Victoria Mounted Police Unit
in Australia also regularly uses Andrew for the training and desensitizing
of their horses and the training of their riders.
The clinic in Fernie is being held January 24 and 25 at Trit Trot Farms. Anyone
interested should contact Yvette Gillam (organizer) on 778 5191499 or email yvettegillam@gmail.com