1.    Circle on a lunge line at a walk, trot and lope

         2.    Stop and face, on a lunge line

         3.    One rein Ssop, on a lunge line

         4.    Moving the front and rear, left and right on a lunge line

         5.    Hobble training

         6.    Sacking out with rope, sack and blanket

         7.    The first saddeling

         8.    Ground-driving with one and two reins

         9.    Draging a log

        10.   Cross a bridge, trap and log's, while being driven

  This training system has proven great results.  It promotes trust and a willingness to work and think.  The ground work fundamentals used in this program are a part of everyday training.  Norm believes in a great deal of flexing and collection in the horse's he trains.

     The First Eight Rides

   On the first eight rides, Norm works on a walk, trot and a one rein stop while the horse is learning to carry his weight.

He can now begin teaching the horse to move away from pressure and begin following his head. 

Next, he puts two or three slow, broke steer's into the round pen and begins following them with the horse.  As the horse follows and turns with the cattle, he teaches him all the cue's for turning and stopping.  After the horse learns his cues he takes the horse to the pasture and begins following and turning cattle at a trot.  He now is ready to begin to work on flat circles at a trot and a lope.  The goal is to teach the horse collection and the correct lead.

  At this stage, Norm puts one of our slow, broke, steers in the round pen and he ropes it at a walk and trot.  Because the steer is broke to lead, the confidence this put's in the horse is tremendous. The horse is now ready to begin learning a side-pass and a two-track.

 " Horses love working with cattle, using them in our training program creates confidence and a willingness to work in the horse which is critical."   

    Fundamentals Your Horse Will Have Learned at the End of Training

   By the end of the training program your horse will:

          1.  Stand quite when tied, brushed and saddled

          2.  Stand quite when mounted

          3.  Make a smooth transition between gates

          4.  Stop and back-up

          5.  He will be hobble-trained

          6.  Travel in the correct lead

          7.  Side-pass, right and left

          8.   He will do a two-track

          9.   Drag a log and work a rope

         10.  Follow, turn and block cattle

         11.  Stop and hold cattle on a rope

         12.  Run to cattle, so they can be roped

         13.  Trailer load

         14.  Cross a tarp, bridge and log's

   The Last Two Weeks of Training

  A 90-day horse is a broke horse but not a finished horse.  Also, it is not a trained Roping or Working Cow Horse. 

A 90-day horse is well on his way to becoming your dream horse and is ready to start professional training in the disipline of your choice.

   Trail Horse Training

  Our Trail Horse Training Program consist of every obsticle natural and man made that we can think of.  I started elk hunting on horses at age 18.  On this web-site you will find Norm's cowboy poetry and many of these stories are about trail horses and

experiences on the mountain.  He trains his hunting and trail horses the same way.  The trail horses we train are sacked out with  everything from plastic flags to rolling trash cans.  We introduced them to ducks, geese, dogs and cows.  Norm's poem titaled, "Good morning turkey" and "Avanche" are some of the true stories about his experiences on the trail.

Another service we provide is a horse finding program, we are often asked to find good trail horses for our customers. 

We browse through many web-sites from trail horse of XXX, to mountain wonder horse.  The horses that are passed off as "trail horses" are extremely scary.  I have talked to people that say,

"This horse is bomb-proof, but when I rode him away from the other horses, I found the bomb."

Norm says, "A top trail horse must first be a broke horse."  Please take a look at our horse training segment for all the disiplines that make a broke horse. There are several disiplines that a trail horse needs above and beyond the horse training:  backing up a hill, side-passing over log's, ponying a pack horse and water crossings.  Oh-yes and then there's my wife, crawling across the ground, under a tarp as we train and sack-out our horses.......This reminds me of the time I was packing cattle salt, in the national forest.  There were three ladies, riding their horses about fifty-yards in front of me.  At this time, one of the ladies started cussing this poor fisherman because she felt his fishing pole looked like a whip and was going to scare her poor horse.  As the poor man approached me, he stepped ten feet off the trail, put his fishing pole on the ground and was standing very quietly.  I stopped my horses and asked him to please pick up his fishing pole and come back up on the trail.  I apologized to him and told him he has as much right on the trail with his fishing pole as we do our horses.  I then told him I personaly know of three bears on this mountain and that your fishing pole could become the least of her worries. 

                         The moral of this story is that a trail horse needs as much training as any other disipline.

                                                                   "Good Morning Turkey" 

   It was first season Elk.  "The Wild Bunch," the name given to our hunting party by some of the wives and girlfriends, was

about to ride out of camp.

It was 4:40 a.m., no moon, and very dark out.  A coyote howled a wailing cry from half way up the mountain side...........

  The plan was for the party to ride to the top of the mountain and set up on the rocks.  My job was to dog the dark timber

and send the elk up to the hunting party.  I volunteered to push or dog the timber the first day.  I was riding a three-year-old

colt that I had just put ninety-days of riding on and I was thinking the first day he would do better alone.

  The little horse didn't like the dark and was looking for anything to get stupid over and start bucking.  I dropped off the trail

and started into the dark timber.  The morning dew mixed with the sweet smell of rotting pine needles was almost heaven to

me.  I was riding along just enjoying being back in the forest.

    I just entered an area of large, old, beetle-killed trees.  In the dark, with just the starlight, they looked like something out of

"The Wizard of Oz" and at times could be a little spooky.  I was riding under one of the big, old, dead trees when one of my angels got bored and decided to have some fun with Norm, and his young horse.  Something went splat between my horse's eyes, scaring the hell out of him and sending him running backwards into one of the big, dead trees.  The little horse bounced

off the tree and started bucking.  We made three circles before I got him pulled up.  The next 120 seconds were the longest, scariest, and wildest times of my life.  The forest came alive with the sound of one hundred flat tires on a runaway truck.

Something hit my horse in the butt and here we go again, bucking and kicking and bouncing off trees----this was starting to get serious.

   My rifle went flying from it's boot, followed by my saddle bags and slicker.  This horse had lost his mind and was bucking in place, kicking mud and rotten pine needles twenty feet in the air. 

I was ready for all this BS to stop, but the worst of it was this wreck had just begun.

   I had ridden under three trees with about sixty roused and sleeping turkeys.  The dumb things were flying to the ground, hitting

my horse in the face, the shoulder and running between his legs.  I was all but bucked off, two or three times.  I was pulling leather, grabbing with spurs, and trying like hell not to get bucked off or it would be a long walk back to camp. 

I got the little horse pulled up and his eyes were the size of dinner plates.

   It was right then when this wreck turned into a nightmare.  In all the confusion, the turkeys had make a big circle and were coming back for a second bombing run on my horse and me.  They were flying about six-feet off the ground and coming straight at us.  The little horse tried to run away.  Now running off this mountain would get us both killed so I put him into a spin, hoping he would get dizzy and fall down.  On our second spin, one of those dumb birds flew between his legs and got stuck in his breast collar. The wings of that bird were raking the shoulders of that horse like no bronc rider could ever do.

   We were spinning like most reiners wish they could.  The little horse was getting dizzy and staggered and fell to the ground. 

But. . . I say but . . . when we hit the ground, that damn bird let out a cry that would knock hell off its hinges.  The little horse

struggled to it's feet and started running backwards and fell over and just layed there like a shot dog --- at this point, dead

was looking pretty good.  I crawled out from under him thinking if I had just broken something small, I was going to be lucky. 

The bird had come unstuck and was laying there giving me a cussing like no mother-in-law could ever match.  I walked over to the little horse and his breathing was starting to slow down.  I pulled on is head and got him up...

   The little horse was covered with white foam from his head to his tail, and was standing spry-legged with his head six inches

off the ground.  The forest was really quiet and I looked over at that dumb bird that had tried to kill us. 

He was deader that a hummingbird in a weed eater.

   I started to lead my horse over to the bird, but he snorted and started to backing up.  I don't think I could have packed that

bird out of there in a sack.  This little horse had seen all the turkey he ever cared to see.  The poor little horse was shit on,

rammed in the ass by a bird and a tree, ran over, around and under by sixty turkeys, to say nothing about getting knocked

down a time or two.

    I was thinking how good that bird would be with a beer or six.  And then, I considered if fish and game caught me with

 that bird and asked how I got it, I would go straight to jail for hunting out of season, no license and hunting turkey with

 a horse. 

   I hobbled the horse and started looking for my rifle.  The ground was torn up for seventy feet in every direction. 

I found my rifle and my lunch.  My thermos was broken and my lunch was a bag of soup. 

My chaps were covered with rotten pine needles and mud from the fall

   That night in camp, I told the boys this story.  The next day, I had to take them out and show them the dead bird. 

We found my glove.