A little bit about myself:
I'm a junior at Montana State University studying Equine Science with a Business minor. I started riding horses when I was ten years old at Horse Feather Farm in Covina, CA. After two years of being a Camper, I became a Camp Counselor for the next five years. My duties were to teach kids ages 6-15 how to care for, ride, and enjoy horses. It was a huge part of my childhood that definitely influenced where I am today.
I didn't always know I wanted to be a horse trainer. For my entire life, I wanted to be a vet for small animals. Around the age of 15, I realized that I don't like needles, therefore that career was not for me. I did a summer camp at the San Diego Wild Animal Park the summer of 2010 and learned about all the different types of jobs you can do with wild animals. This was around the same time I became really interested and involved with the wild mustangs roaming the open ranges.
From this camp I learned that I wanted to train animals. I just had no idea what animals I wanted to train. At first I began looking up schools that offer zoology and other animal majors. But that just didn't seem like a whole lot of fun to study zoology. And did I really want to be the next Steve Irwin?
I then stumbled upon the movie The Horse Whisperer staring Robert Redford. I instantly fell in love with the idea of training horses. I then went on youtube and began watching videos of training methods by Monty Roberts, Pat Parelli, and Buck Brannaman. They all inspired me to find my own methods and train horses the rest of my life.
My next step was to find a college that offered equine science as a major. This wasn't too hard though. After spending months researching schools all over the country, I decided on MSU. The surrounding area and amazing equine program convinced me this was the school for me. It didn't matter to me that I knew absolutely no one up here; I was in love. It was the beginning of Junior year in high school that I had decided.
All throughout high school, my dad and I would drive 50-60 miles north of Bishop, CA to find wild horses. We would just drive around the area until we found a herd and we would take pictures and videos of them. I had fallen in love with their freedom, beauty, and compassion for each other. We did this quite a few times. By this time I was fully aware of all the controversy between the BLM and Wild Horse advocates, such as Madeline Pickens. For my senior research paper, I decided to write about this controversy. During this process, I learned more of the slaughterhouses in Canada and Mexico that wild horses were being sent to. This disturbed me so much that I finally decided what kind of horse training I wanted to do.
I decided on training the young, wild, and abused. I want to train these horses to be rehabilitated into forever homes away from harm. Basically, I want to make a difference in this world, one horse at a time.
I'm a junior at Montana State University studying Equine Science with a Business minor. I started riding horses when I was ten years old at Horse Feather Farm in Covina, CA. After two years of being a Camper, I became a Camp Counselor for the next five years. My duties were to teach kids ages 6-15 how to care for, ride, and enjoy horses. It was a huge part of my childhood that definitely influenced where I am today.
I didn't always know I wanted to be a horse trainer. For my entire life, I wanted to be a vet for small animals. Around the age of 15, I realized that I don't like needles, therefore that career was not for me. I did a summer camp at the San Diego Wild Animal Park the summer of 2010 and learned about all the different types of jobs you can do with wild animals. This was around the same time I became really interested and involved with the wild mustangs roaming the open ranges.
From this camp I learned that I wanted to train animals. I just had no idea what animals I wanted to train. At first I began looking up schools that offer zoology and other animal majors. But that just didn't seem like a whole lot of fun to study zoology. And did I really want to be the next Steve Irwin?
I then stumbled upon the movie The Horse Whisperer staring Robert Redford. I instantly fell in love with the idea of training horses. I then went on youtube and began watching videos of training methods by Monty Roberts, Pat Parelli, and Buck Brannaman. They all inspired me to find my own methods and train horses the rest of my life.
My next step was to find a college that offered equine science as a major. This wasn't too hard though. After spending months researching schools all over the country, I decided on MSU. The surrounding area and amazing equine program convinced me this was the school for me. It didn't matter to me that I knew absolutely no one up here; I was in love. It was the beginning of Junior year in high school that I had decided.
All throughout high school, my dad and I would drive 50-60 miles north of Bishop, CA to find wild horses. We would just drive around the area until we found a herd and we would take pictures and videos of them. I had fallen in love with their freedom, beauty, and compassion for each other. We did this quite a few times. By this time I was fully aware of all the controversy between the BLM and Wild Horse advocates, such as Madeline Pickens. For my senior research paper, I decided to write about this controversy. During this process, I learned more of the slaughterhouses in Canada and Mexico that wild horses were being sent to. This disturbed me so much that I finally decided what kind of horse training I wanted to do.
I decided on training the young, wild, and abused. I want to train these horses to be rehabilitated into forever homes away from harm. Basically, I want to make a difference in this world, one horse at a time.