Internship Opportunities
Accepting applications for interns who want to learn to understand the mind and motives of horses and to use that knowledge to improve the lives of horses and people. For information and to applyOnline Classes
"The Horse, The Herd and The Hoof", our 15 session online class that gives a ‘no frills’, ‘this is how we do it’ description of Natural Horsemanship, Natural Horse Care and Natural Hoof Care. If you want to understand your horse and how you can best care for him, this is the series for you. Every session is written just as if you were standing beside Steve in a round pen or sitting in a classroom with him. The classes are interactive with room to question and seek a deeper understanding of your horse's needs. Best of all, the entire session only costs $160.00. Students will need to acquire two of the main texts on their own, ‘Soul of a Horse’ by Joe Camp, and Pete Ramey's, ‘Natural Hoof Care’.
Training Clinics
A Mill Swamp Indian Horse Clinic is much more than just another trip around the round pen. In our clinics we not only demonstrate how we gentle wild horses and start them to saddle, we demonstrate how we teach kids to do the training. Most of our riders have gentled and started horses to saddle under my direction and many are fully capable of doing so without my assistance.Not bad for kids who not only are not old enough to drive, many are still ordering from the children's menu at restaurants!
We have clinics on site and have traveled out of state to conduct these unique and entertaining programs. On site clinics can be arranged for 4-H and other youth horse organizations at no cost.E mail us to discuss the cost for other clinics.
Here is what some others have said about Steve Edwards' training clinics and demonstrations:
"Steve is a wild horse reincarnated. I have never seen anyone be so successful with a green horse as quickly as Steve Edwards. He is a master teacher of both equines and humans and his riders are never just passengers but extensions of their horses. I recommend Steve's clinics to anyone who want a horse that responds out of love, loyalty and respect."
-- Karen McCalpin, Executive Director, Corolla Wild Horse Fund
"Steve Edwards' natural horsemanship clinics are inspiring to horse persons of any age, but he is simply the best that I have ever seen when it comes to teaching natural horsemanship skills to the youngest equestrians. Whether he's teaching a grandma to fulfill a lifetime dream or training a parent of a horse loving child, Steve is tops. But put Steve, horses and kids together and real magic happens."
--Vickie Ives, owner of Karma Farms of Marshall, Texas, Americas most decorated Colonial Spanish horse breeding farm and Vice-President of the Horse of the Americas Registry
I Ride Ponies
The sorrel stallion charged down the runway and slid to a stop with the rails of the auction pit only inches from his nose. With eyes wide-open and nostrils flaring, he tossed his head and threw his flowing mane to the side. He eyed the audience, stomped, snorted and then did something that I did not know horses could do—he seemed to propel himself straight up, turn himself in the air, land, and tear back up that same runway at top speed. He disappeared as quickly as he had appeared. He was, then he was not—there was nothing in between.This little stallion was the first moving mustang I had ever seen. I have been around horses all my life but I have never observed such athletic ability. A few hours earlier, I watched an experienced mustang gentler lead this young stud around the ring only minutes after he was first roped. Surely he would sell quite high in the ensuing Bureau of Land Management wild horse auction.
He did not sell high. He did not sell at all. No one even bid on him. For all his ability, for all his willingness to learn, for all his stunning beauty, he was not a horse. He was a pony and modern American adults do not ride ponies.
I ride ponies and I am an adult. I ride ponies and I am a large adult. I ride ponies and I ride them long and hard. I have ridden Holland, a 13 hand Shackleford, fifty miles in a day on several occassions.
I ride because they give me what I want, which is to ride for hours on end on woods trails with my family. I have no need to pull a beer wagon. I do not fox hunt. I will never ride in the Kentucky Derby. In short, I do nothing with my ponies that would require me to feed an extra 400 pounds and two hands of horseflesh. My Indian Horses range from about 13.1 to 14.2 hands. They have heavy bones and iron-hard hooves. I doubt if any of them weigh over nine hundred pounds. Each carries my two hundred pound frame with grace and ease.
I ride ponies because they are healthy, easy keepers. My Indian Horses do not need grain. Indeed, it often takes quite a while before a mustang will even try the taste of grain. They live wonderfully on grass and hay. With the help of mineral supplement, they grow tough, dense hooves that have yet to require a shoe.
I ride ponies because they are easier to handle than tall heavy horses. I do not need a cherry picker to saddle up. I do not need an elevator to mount up. When I fall off, I only have a short descent to make. When they step on my feet, I do not end up lame.
Even with all these advantages, I am still asked why I ride those poor little things that are, after all, “only ponies.” Americans love big things. We are the only nation that feels the need to super-size a meal containing a three-layered hamburger. We drive SUV’s and root for 7ft tall basketball players and 300-pound football players. To make matters worse, children often start out on ponies and then graduate to horses. Ponies are viewed as the equine equivalent of training pants and horses, especially big horses, are the big boy pants of the properly potty-trained equestrian. Many riders are self-conscious of their own weight problems and feel that they call attention to their weight by riding the smaller equines. Worst of all, many riders are simply unaware of the carrying capacity of a well-built, well-conditioned pony. I will never forget being told by a woman with life-long equestrian experience that my 14-hand Indian Horse could never carry her because he was “just a pony.” She looked to weigh about fifty pounds less than me.
Not all cultures have shared our silly prejudices against ponies. Gall was one of the top four leaders of the Sioux and Cheyenne forces at the Little Big Horn. As a young man, he weighed around 240 pounds. When Custer’s men looked up to see Gall riding over the hill to them they did not see him astride a Clydesdale. Nor was he even riding a Warm-blood. Like all the victorious warriors on that day, he rode in on a mustang, likely one that was “just a pony.”
Aside from all of their other advantages, I ride ponies because of the sense of history that they project. I ride ponies because DeSoto invaded America on ponies. I ride ponies because Crazy Horse defended his America on ponies. I ride ponies because there was a Pony Express but there never was a Horse Express. I ride ponies because Quannah Parker lived on a pony and I ride ponies because Roman Nose died on a pony.
I ride ponies because heart is not measured in hands.
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