Kenny Harlow
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Knowing nothing about John Lyons back in 1990, but willing to learn from anyone, I decided to attend his 3-day clinic. Simply put, those three days changed my life.
Training with Trust
In the early 1990’s I was searching for something, something more than the mundane 9-5 job. I had grown up on a very large working dairy farm in Virginia, where my family and I were responsible for milking over 150 cows a day. This was hard, arduous work regardless of your age. Horses were always part of our farm life and my own personal place of refuge on the dairy farm. In retrospect, that comfort and my love and respect for horses were instrumental in my decision to become a horse trainer. However, with the exuberance of youth often comes blissful ignorance, a category I fell whole heartedly into.
After getting bucked off numerous horses, I thought I must be missing something. There must be a better way and I was determined to find it. Twenty plus years ago there weren’t a lot of natural horse trainers giving clinics, nor did we have the luxury of the Google gods to search them out. Through word of mouth I heard about a clinic being given by John Lyons in Herndon, Virginia at Flying Pen Park Ranch. Knowing nothing about John Lyons, but willing to learn from anyone, I decided to attend his 3-day clinic. Simply put, those three days changed my life. With John, I found my answers. Not just answers on how to become a better horse trainer, or how to communicate better with your horse but, life answers on communication, respect and love that encompasses every aspect of not only your horse training, but your life.
Interview and Photography by Jen Wenzel