NCHA-mr-versatile

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Mr
Versatile
...Rides Again...
ARTICLE: MARYANNE LEIGHTON ~ PHOTOGRAPHY: DOWNUNDER HORSEMANSHIP
The world’s leading
clinician, Australian-born
Clinton Anderson, with his
Aussie mentor and friend,
Ian Francis
30.
Eye to Eye ~ 2009 NCHA CUTTING HORSE YEARBOOK
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aster cutter Ian Francis is a
horseman of many talents and
many more achievements. He is a
trainer of international repute who is often
described by his peers as the best all-round
horseman in the world.
The cutting fraternity knows little about Ian outside the
cutting pen. Cutters are mainly familiar with his three NCHA
Futurity wins and three reserves, his NCHA Derby win plus
the scores of regional cutting futurity and derby champions
that he has produced. But he has done so much more. Over his
thirty-year career Ian has won almost every equestrian event
that exists. He has trained polocrosse horses, hacks, dressage
horses, Arabians, Warmbloods, Shetland Ponies, Australian
Stock Horses and all the Western breeds, and has won every
type of class he ever entered.
He racked up wins in an unbelievable number of challenges,
championships and futurities, including five NRHA Reining
Futurities and four Reserves, another four NRHA Reining
Derbies and four Reserves, four NRCHA Reined Cow Horse
Futurities and seven Reserves, two Cloncurry Stockman’s
Challenges, two-year-old, three-year-old and four-year-old
Widgee Stock Horse Futurities, and two-year-old, three-yearold and four-year-old Monto Stock Horse Futurities.
Ian was the first Aussie trainer to win $100,000 in reining
competition and he trained and showed countless Royal Show
Champions, AQHA National Champions and All Breeds
Futurity Champions in halter, western pleasure, hack, bridle
path hack, western riding and versatility. His cow horse futurity
champions often did double duty as reining futurity champions
and they frequently competed in halter and western riding at
the same time.
If that isn’t enough, Ian won the International Reining
Council’s IRC World Cup (held in Canada against international
competition), was Equitana Asia-Pacific Masters Reining
Champion and just for something completely different, he
trained and rode three Brisbane Royal Champion Station
Hacks. He dominated Rockhampton Quarter Horse Sale from
A sight not seen any more, Ian in jodhpurs. Here he rides
Jenny Kingston's Kolora Lunar Lady in the early 1980s
1978 to 1993 and to this day conducts clinics around the world
and trains non-pro and open horses that win for their owners
and other professional trainers. In recognition of his wideranging achievements, Ian has been inducted into the NCHA
and AQHA Halls of Fame and is an NRHA Rider Legend and
Mitavite Living Legend.
Is it any wonder that in the 1980s and 90s
Ian Francis was known as Mr Versatile?
Clinton Anderson
However, Ian isn’t just a trainer of horses. He also gives
freely of his time and knowledge to support and encourage
other riders and is a mentor for other professional trainers. In
fact, he is the man to whom other trainers turn when they face
insurmountable problems with their horses. Over his 30 years
in the business, Ian has mentored, encouraged and nurtured
a long list of young Aussies, many of whom are today’s
outstanding trainers and horsemen and women. Without
a doubt, his most successful protégée is Clinton Anderson.
Who is Clinton Anderson? Only one of the most visible and
successful Aussie horsemen ever to hit American soil.
After working for Ian in the early 90s then training from
his own establishment at Rockhampton, Clinton arrived in
the US as a wannabe clinician who ‘didn’t even have enough
money to buy a new pair of undies’ and who is now one of the
world’s most respected and successful ‘people trainers’, set to
turn over an astounding US$20 million this year.
Ian recalls the brash young Clinton questioning, watching,
listening and absorbing information while he took on board
Ian’s strong work ethic. Clinton acquired valuable insight from
Ian into how to gain ‘feel’ for a horse and – most importantly
for his future success – how to teach it. After leaving Ian,
Clinton set himself up at Rockhampton, training ‘everything
that walked in the gate’, turning away none of the hundreds
of horses presented to him, including what seemed like every
rank horse in the district. He says the foundation that Ian and
those tough horses gave him means that today there is no horse
and no situation involving horses that he cannot handle. He
conducted his first horsemanship clinics from Rockhampton
and in 1998, at the tender age of 23, began the hard journey of
establishing himself in the USA.
Struggling to get his business off the ground, Clinton knew
he had to work harder and smarter than any of the established
big-name Americans. In his first year he conducted 48 tiny
clinics and only eleven years later – by working harder and
smarter than anyone else – he can command US$226,000 from
a single three-day horsemanship clinic. Hundreds of thousands
of riders and fence-sitters sit in rapt attention at clinics
conducted by this charismatic man who has a remarkable (and
very marketable) ability to communicate clearly, succinctly and
with passion and humour. He is supremely self confident and
apart from selling himself he sells training equipment along
with instructional DVDs and books (more than four hundred
thousand of them to date). There is a Clinton Anderson fan
club and his high personal profile influences the purchasing
decisions of millions of American horse owners.
2009 NCHA CUTTING HORSE YEARBOOK ~ Eye to Eye
31.
---------- l ---------- FEATURE ARTICLE ---------- l ---------Training the trainer to train a cow horse
Now Ian is helping Clinton in his quest to win the
coveted National Reined Cow Horse Association Snaffle
Bit Futurity in Reno, Nevada, in 2010. Reining has long
been Clinton’s passion and, considering how little time he
has to train his horses, he has enjoyed reasonable success
in futurities both here and in the States. He was third in
the 1997 Australian NRHA Futurity after winning the
first go-round, and in 2006 he won not only the Ohio
Reining Futurity but also the Limited, Intermediate and
Open Divisions. Now Clinton is throwing his reining
hat into the cow horse ring. Even though he has never
competed in cow horse before and there’s only 16 months
until the biggest show in the cow horse world, he is not
afraid to mix it with the big boys and their supremely
talented horses.
Ian winning the 2002 NRHA Reining Futurity on
Diana Francis' Most Likely Olena
Clinton has twice won the prestigious Road to the Horse
colt-starting challenge, an event that is heralded as the USA’s
Greatest Horsemanship Event of the Year, and he was the
first clinician to launch a weekly made-for-TV horse training
show ‘to provide something of interest that educates as well
as entertains’. His show covers a wide range of topics and
addresses concerns and problems that are common to all horse
owners. It instantly became rural network RFD-TV’s mostwatched equine program.
A life-long clinic junkie, Clinton has learned and continues
to learn from the best in the world, including his Aussie
mentor, Ian Francis. At every one of his clinics, Clinton still
gives credit to those, including Ian, who helped him get where
he is today, because ‘every successful person, including me, got
a helping hand somewhere.’ Such is his continuing regard for
Ian’s abilities that Clinton flies him to the States twice every
year to conduct joint clinics.
Around 165 riders and fence-sitters turned up for the
most recent Clinton Anderson / Ian Francis clinic in Texas
this March which left the participants clamouring for more.
Jennifer Gonzalez said, ‘I was blown away... Ian is funny,
patient, helpful and worked with everyone to get them through
on their own level.’ Kelly Jackson added, ‘I cannot believe how
much my mare and I learned...Ian is so nice...It was great
that Clinton wasn’t “centre stage”... I would do it again in a
heartbeat.’ Lynne Boyer said, ‘It’s such a treat to watch Ian. He
is so kind with everyone, works with everyone no matter what
their level ’til they improve. And they all have such big smiles
on their faces after they are done with him!’
Between them Clinton and Ian sold US$9000 worth of
DVDs, books and training equipment in the first day of the
clinic, including 100 copies of Ian’s motivational book That
Winning Attitude that Clinton has re-released for the American
market. Ian is delighted with the response to what he calls his
‘little book’, saying it is so popular in the States that another
hundred have been stolen over the past three months.
32.
Eye to Eye ~ 2009 NCHA CUTTING HORSE YEARBOOK
Clinton’s futurity prospect is his own-bred gelding
by CD Olena (NCHA Futurity and Derby winner and
NCHA Horse of the Year) out of his reining futurity
winner Nic N Smart (by Reminic out of Cowgirls Are
Smart by Smart Chic Olena). He is confident that this
gelding will handle the pressure and intense action of a
speed event like cow horse because from his breeding
programme he has already produced winners for the
NCHA’s top money-earner Todd Crawford, as well as
reining’s first three-million-dollar rider and winner of
four NRHA Futurities, Shawn Flarida, and million-dollar
riders Brent Wright and Andrea Frappani.
A cow horse has to be calm, fast, agile and responsive
with a burst of speed and the ability to quickly change
gears and leads, stop and turn back. Training a cow horse
involves training one multi-talented and well-rounded
horse in three distinct disciplines – two-handed cutting,
reining and fence work (where the rider must turn the
cow against the fence in both directions and circle it in
both directions). So, a competitive cow horse must be an
above-average cutting horse, an above-average reining
horse and an above-average working horse. It goes
without saying that training for three disciplines is time
consuming, challenging, intensive and expensive but Ian
says it is also unbelievably exciting and very rewarding.
Ian knows working cow horse inside out. His lifetime
of working with cattle and his innate understanding of
how they think combined with his background in camp
drafting enabled him to make this heady sport his own
back in the 1980s. He trained and rode cow horse futurity
champions at every important show of the day, produced
the AQHA Working Cow Horse of the Year for five years
in succession from 1986 to 1989 and the Queensland
Reined Cow Horse Futurity Champion for the six years
from 1985 to 1990. In 1989 he not only won the QRCHA
Futurity but also placed second and third, and in 1990
again won and took out Reserve Champion.
Clinton Anderson with his Aussie Quarter
Horse mare Pillamindi Doll (Pillamindi Roc
by Roc‘O’Lena out of Spinifex Doll by Doc’s
Spinifex). Mindy has her own fan club and some
say she is more popular in America than Clinton
Thrills and spills
The most thrilling phase of cow horse and the one that
draws the huge crowds is the fast, risky and often explosive
fence phase. Clinton Anderson says, ‘If you have never seen a
working cow horse running full-out down the fence to turn a
cow, with last-minute turns, near misses, dust flying and the
crowd cheering, you can’t comprehend the thrill of witnessing
this ultimate high-speed chase. It can really take your breath
away.’
Fence is all about thrills and spills and Ian says it is not
unusual for a horse to fall during this phase. Ian was renowned
for his fearlessness along the fence and you always knew when
he and his horse were about to enter the arena – spectators
would leave what they were doing and flock to watch the man
they called The Kamikaze Pilot. Heather Pascoe’s Australian
Stock Horse mare Star Carousel fell with him at the famed
Moonbi Cow Horse Futurity in 1986 but he managed to stay
in the saddle and won the Futurity – and also placed third and
fourth on the Quarter Horses D.Bar Paint Your Wagon and
Whisp O’Lena. At the 1990 Dubbo Futurity, Nonda Tall Poppy,
again owned by Heather Pascoe, emptied him out of the saddle
in another spectacular fall but he scrambled back on and again
won the Futurity.
Why does Clinton Anderson in America look to Ian
Francis from Australia when there are so many high profile
and successful trainers in the USA? ‘Because of his unique
ability to read a cow and get a horse soft,’ Clinton explains. He
adds, ‘Not a lot of trainers over here are good at doing all three
phases of working cow horse and Ian is world class in all three.’
Ian’s contribution to Clinton’s quest to win at Reno is to
help him change the way he trains his horse. He says, ‘To adapt
for cow horse, Clinton has had to change a few of the things
he does with his reining horses. He’s also had to change his
outlook and think about the differences between training and
competing because he’s just as likely to want to pull up and
fix things if they go wrong!’ Few horses are good at all three
phases of cow horse so Ian is teaching Clinton to balance the
three, working on the areas his horse needs help and refining
the good bits. Clinton works his horse every day, spending
two-thirds of his time on cattle and the other third on reining.
He says, ‘The good thing about working cattle is that they do
something different every day so it’s hard to get a horse sour
because he never knows what’s coming up next.’ Keeping his
horse mentally fresh and alert and giving him a purpose is
important to Clinton who occasionally takes his cow horse on
a trail ride and gives him a day off every week.
Unlike a choreographed reining pattern, anything can
and will go wrong in cow horse so Ian has set out ‘what if ’
scenarios for Clinton. What if the cow doesn’t want to come
off the fence? How do you make her? What if the cow doesn’t
want to be turned? How do you turn her? Clinton is learning to
make split-second decisions and go with them and he is singleminded in his determination to do this cow horse thing right
– and Clinton on a mission is something to see. Ian says, ‘The
thing I admire about him most is that, with such a high profile
as he has, he’s not afraid to put himself out in front of everyone
and he’s not afraid to fail in public.’ To give him the best chance
of not failing at this most challenging event, Ian will return to
Texas to tune Clinton’s horse just before the futurity.
2009 NCHA CUTTING HORSE YEARBOOK ~ Eye to Eye
33.
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A lifetime of knowledge…
Clinton wants to make sure that Ian passes on
every last particle of the knowledge and experience
he has amassed in his lifetime with horses and
cattle, so over the past few years he has videotaped
more than 300 hours of conversations between the
two of them, just for his own private use. Going a
step further, early this year the pair filmed a series of
training DVDs. These cover building a foundation
on competition horses, developing stockman’s
challenge and reined cow horses and developing a
reining horse. Ian says Clinton’s talented in-house
production team has delivered a product that is way
beyond anything seen in this country before, ‘It’s
pretty up-market for Australia and the graphics are
fabulous’. There are six to seven hours of viewing
on each topic and each DVD includes training
interspersed with Clinton reminiscing about Ian.
Clinton says, ‘In case you’re wondering why I’ve
done these DVDs – I wanted to do Ian a favour. I
wanted to say thanks for what he did for me and
to pay him back for all the times he helped other
people who didn’t have the manners to thank him
themselves.’ Aussie competitors in all disciplines
could do worse than take a lead from Clinton
Anderson. Make the most of what Mr Versatile has
to offer before it’s too late – and remember to thank
him.
34.
Clinton says, ‘I try to work on both reining and cattle every
single day. I mix it up for variety and so that I can check all
my bases and make sure he’s working well in all areas.’
Eye to Eye ~ 2009 NCHA CUTTING HORSE YEARBOOK