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Our resident horse trainer, Cleve Atkin, has always loved horses of all kinds. 50 of his 58 years involved horses in one form or another. At 8 years old his family moved to the country and he rode any horse he could get his hands on. Neighbors would let him ride and when they got tired of saddling them, he would just ride bareback. He once was so hungry for a ride he mounted the neighbor's shetland pony with a piece of twine in his mouth for a bridle and no saddle! As a teenager his dad bought some horses to ride then got tired of him wearing the shoes off of them, so he told Cleve, “If you are going to ride their shoes off, I better teach you to shoe them!” Cleve’s Dad, George was raised on a ranch in Salmon, Idaho and taught “the boys” a lot about horses and ranching. When Cleve married, his new brother-in-law roped him into a business of “green breaking” colts for hire. They also shoed horses for hire. After 35 years as a Ferrier with hundreds of horses shod and dozens trained, Cleve now specializes in training the horse and rider to work together. As no two horses are the same, no two riders are the same. Knowledge of how a horse thinks and reacts to outside stimuli is a big part of training a horses. Consistency of treatment of a horse by the rider is important. So Cleve has learned that it is often the rider, not the horse that lacks proper training.
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