My journey with horses started many years ago, innocently enough I might add. I had
    started hunting elk in Idaho and Montana and wanted to be able to access the backcountry
    more easily. I was injured horribly several times. Once was life threatening.

    At this point I decided to learn about the horse and why he does what he does. After a
    search I happened upon John Lyons and Pat Parelli. I was amazed that it was possible to
    have a meaningful conversation with a horse, and that it was possible to alter his behavior
    and my perception of that behavior.

    As I progressed with my efforts I started to want this knowledge more than air. I studied
    hard and with the best that I could find. It was not easy for me, but with the help of very
    good local people and the greats like John Lyons, Pat Parelli, Ray Hunt, Tom Dorrance,
    Buck Brannaman, Harry Whitney, Jeff Moore, and Wendy Murdoch, I have managed to
    gain a level of proficiency that has allowed me to make my living with horses for the past
    twenty years.

    As I have gotten older I have started devoting more and more of my energy and time to
    teaching. We still train a lot but I know that it will not be long before my time with the horses
    will be done, and I want to share what all of my teachers, especially the horses, have taught
    me. With help, I now feel that I have the knowledge of the whole horse and enjoy dressage,
    trail riding, cutting, ranch roping, and of course, teaching. The horses and people that I have
    met have allowed me to travel and work with horses in Germany, Italy, Portugal, The
    Netherlands, and Belgium as well as most of the western states in the USA. I am grateful for
    these opportunities.

Bill Basham

I grew up in North Dakota riding in the wheat and sunflower fields, showing in Western and English Pleasure.  While attending college at the University of Minnesota, to obtain a degree in Horse Management, I was given the opportunity to ride and experience may different breeds of horses. 

After obtaining my Bachelors Degree in Horse Science at Washington State University, I spent my internship in California with a dressage trainer.  It was then I realized that balanced, centered riding was the answer for the humans, but unhappiness and containment for the horse.  It was so unnatural. 

I am thankful now, but when my friend Ann Warrington, insisted I attend a Parelli clinic, I was skeptical ... within 20 minutes, I was on the edge of my seat with goose bumps, knowing I had found the answer ... for the horse.

    Angie Reitmeier