If you’ve been riding reining horses for awhile, and you’ve had plenty of horse show experience, what are you going to learn from a college online horse training course?
“You learn a lot, from basic techniques to some very helpful advanced training methods,” says Susan Dahl-Mitchell of Burgessville, Ontario, Canada. “I really loved the online availability of the material and the self-paced system.”
The riding and showing of reining horses is nothing new to Dahl-Mitchell; she’s been doing it for nearly a decade. To most of her friends, she is known as “ReinerSue.”
Dahl-Mitchell recently completed Training Performance Horses and received her “certificate of recognition” from Allegany College of Maryland. The course is taught by author/trainer Don Blazer and is offered online by four colleges. To see a sample of the course text and get registration details log onto www.donblazer.com
“The course is very thorough, with well-written instructions and plenty of photos. In my opinion, the course is excellent for adult learning because it has theory, then a practice session, followed by both a true-false and narrative quiz,” says Dahl-Mitchell. Students get each lesson by e-mail, study the lesson, and then complete a quiz which is reviewed by Blazer and returned with comments. When the quiz is completed, the student gets the next lesson.
If students have a specific problem, they contact Blazer by e-mail for immediate, individual help.
The course certainly met all my expectations, she said. “I wanted to learn to train performance horses, and I sure did.”
Dahl-Mitchell is planning to use her performance horse training talents professionally. She is currently building a new training facility, which she hopes will be operational by this summer.
Click here to register or call:
Scottsdale Community College
Call (480) 423-6321
Paradise Valley Community College
Call (602) 787-6800
Allegany College of Maryland
Call (301) 784-5341 or
FAX (301) 784-5023
or register online at www.ac.cc.md.us/acce.htm
New Mexico State University, Grants Campus
Call (505) 287-6641
NMSU offers students the use of campus computer room.
How effective can an online college course be in training a horse 1,700 miles away?
Shari Duell, who has been around horses all her life and "thought I knew everything about them" says she "found new information in every lesson that I didn’t know before and could use right now!"
Duell of North Bent, Ohio, just completed Training Performance Horses, a noncredit online course from Scottsdale Community College in Scottsdale, Arizona. By successfully completing the nine-lesson course, she earned a "Certificate of Recognition" for her accomplishment.
The online course was developed by internationally known author/trainer Don Blazer. He grades the true-false quiz at the end of each lesson, and provides step by step guidance to students by answering specific questions in a weekly chat room. In addition to the quiz, each student writes a short narrative report on progress and problems, and Blazer returns comments and suggestions.
While Duell thought some of the quiz questions were "tricky," she told Blazer, "Thanks, you are really making me think about this."
Teaching a horse to stop without pulling back and without resistance was a difficult chore for Duell before taking the course. "The lesson completely explained the issue of stopping. You have cleared up a small detail for me very precisely. Your last statement in the lesson being the clincher."
Allegany College of Maryland (301) 784-5341) and Paradise Valley Community College (602) 787-6800) offer the course in addition to Scottsdale (480) 423-6305) and
New Mexico State University, Grants Campus (505) 287-6641. Students register with the college of their choice and start anytime, completing the course at their own pace.
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Horse Training
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