Wendy was born and raised on a working farm in southern Manitoba, 20 miles from the nearest town. She got her first pony when she was 4, and by the age of 10 had moved up to a Quarter Horse/Thoroughbred gelding. For the next many years, her favourite thing to do was to pack a lunch and spend entire days out on him exploring the valleys, crossing rivers, and watching wildlife. “I just really liked to go places and explore,” she smiles. She credits that horse - and all the miles they covered together - for being one of her greatest teachers.
She always dreamt of training horses. As a teenager, she tried to start a couple horses. “And that went poorly!” she laughs. “I came off quite a few times.” But by her early 20s, she’d garnered more experience; in 2001 she moved to Saskatchewan and began starting horses professionally. During these years she learned to rope and to trim hooves on the side, but outside of training she focused on developing proper equitation. “Posture affect posture; human to horse and horse to human. The more balanced and athletic the horse moves, the more balanced and athletic the rider moves - and vice versa.”
In 2006, she became the barn manager at North Fork Equestrian Centre. There she continued to train, as well as manage boarding horses and teach riding lessons. North Fork was home to one of this country’s important Gypsy Vanner herds. Wendy spent 9 years working closely with Dale and Cheryl Nygard and their Gypsy Vanner breeding/training program. “The Nygards were one of the first major breeders in Canada to get Gypsies going,” says Wendy. “Nobody was really riding them back then, so they were often a crowd favourite when we showcased them under saddle - I’d do dressage, the obstacle course, and barrels on them. For five years, we took them to Spruce Meadows, Mane Event and Calgary Stampede. Also we competed in the Battle of the Breeds at the Equine Expo here twice. I’m very grateful for all those event experiences; they were a lot of work, and a lot of fun.”
In 2015, Wendy moved to the facility she trains out of today. “This has been one of the best places to train out of,” she says. “There’s bush and hills and trails and traffic and cyclists and cactuses and sheep - within five miles, I can show a horse a lot of things here. The indoor arena is nice and bright, it’s a good size, it’s got some heat. Maintaining the footing in the arena is really important to me, it gets groomed often. And maintaining a tidy barn matters to me -tidiness and cleanliness for safety.”
At any given time, Wendy generally has six horses per month in for training; she trains 20 to 30 a year. Training differs depending on where each horse is at. If they’ve never been handled and never had a halter on, Wendy often starts by roping them off of her horse Zephyr. “There’s lots of going ‘with’ them at that point; then I get them giving to pressure,” she says. “Once they’re halter broke, I’m looking to create some bend and softness in them, to get their feet following their nose.” She then does groundwork exercises to simulate things they’ll experience getting ridden. “Here I’m aiming to get them soft in the poll, moving forward, doing lateral movements, being punctual, stopping. It’s just a matter of moving at their pace, as much as you might want to go faster … or sometimes slower!” she laughs. “You have to be where you are when you’re there.”
Wendy is always reflective about what’s going on with each horse. “I’m trying to work with a horse instead of making them do something. Learning to see what the horse is thinking and what makes them comfortable … how do you push them when they’re not comfortable so that they can find a comfortable place. That’s a big journey for probably lots of horse people: wanting a result, but not forcing a result. Training horses is about training yourself. It’s taught me a lot about myself. If I’ve had a terrible ride on a horse where I’ve had to really get after them, and they come out with a pretty sweaty blanket, that doesn’t particularly bother me - they got some extra exercise, and we came through it. But if I come out of that ride and we didn’t get any better from the beginning, that’s 99% on me. And I don’t want that ride again tomorrow, so what do I have to do differently?”
“Working through trouble and lightening baggage in a horse takes time. When the problem horses come through their issues and find some peace, you feel like you’ve done something significant. Or you help someone who’s terrified to ride because they’ve been in a wreck, and you help them find ways to ride again and become more peaceful with it. If I can help a horse find peace, become employable and productive and a purposeful part of the world - that’s fulfilling. I have dressage clients, I have trail clients, I have ranchers - all those horses and people need to find peace. It doesn’t always mean it’s going to be easy - they’re still going to have to go over jump, or do a flying lead change or bend their horse, or canter even though they’re scared. They go through that pressure and come out finding peace, not more pressure. A speedy horse learns to relax and a duller horse learns to pick up the pace. Effort produces peace, a partnership or harmony between horse and rider.”
“Something my dad always said to me: ‘a job worth doing is worth doing well. That really stuck with me. Riding, teaching, management can all fall under that motto and as much as their nature an allow them, I think horses can work that way too. There’s tremendous value in honest, hard work.”“ I feel very fortunate to have been influenced by people who were and are always looking for a better way; a better way to help the horse, a better way to teach a horse, keep that search in them, a better way to improve my equitation, a better way to build courage and try in the horse and its rider. People who looked at themselves first. That’s how I want to relate to horses and people.”
Over the years, Wendy has competed in reined cowhorse and roping. She has tried her hand at jumping, and continues to study dressage. She rides round-up every year, and does some branding. “I got lucky to learn good stockmanship on the pasture side, and good horsemanship as well. Life circumstances and some conscious decisions took me down a trail where I got to ride all different kinds of breeds and all different kinds of horses, and meet all different kinds of people. Something my mom always said to me; ‘It takes all kinds of people to make the world go round.’ It’s up to me to learn how to relate to a person and a horse; if I can approach horses and clients in this way, it creates motivation for a better way.”
As written by Jaqueline Moore