We are at the Kentucky Horsepark getting ready for the World Games. We
have been going over the rehearsal for the opening ceremonies. I also
did a couple of shows at the park. It was a lot of fun. Tomorrow we
leave for Des Moines for the Gold Star Futurity. 700 miles on the
road, followed by 3 days of shows and then Discovery is flying me to
LA for a tv shoot on Sunday. I return Monday to drive the 1300 miles
back home to Florida. Should be a good week. If you are in Des Moines,
stop by and say hi. Ride Fast... Take Chances! Tommie
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Technology and me don't get along so good, so anything that makes my
life easier is a good thing. I love me iPhone and now blogging is
easier too. This is just a test, but I hope it works. It will save me
a lot of time and steps.
Thanks Jamie.
Tommie

Sent from my iPhone

      

Time really flies when you move into a new place. We have been training every morning and the rest of the day spent cleaning, fixing and setting up the ranch. It is a labor of love and takes a lot of planning and time. By the end of the year we will all be experts in landscaping, PVC fencing, plumbing, electric, wood floors, and remodeling. First thing was to get the bugs under control too. The horses always come first, so before we even started on the house or the office, the fences, waterers, bugs, manure,  shavings, hay, grain, and pastures were cut, groomed and controlled. When you have horses, they become your way of life. Your schedule revolves around them. The saying "Dogs have owners, but horses have staff" is true here.
I've been working with the girls (interns) on roman riding the past few days. Kristen and Ashley have been doing very well. Chantal is also roman riding too. Looks like we might have a new act in the works...
 

We're working on a lot of new projects and also trying to get this place ready too. So be patient and we'll have our new intern program, training, and clinic agenda up by the end of the year. We have openings for interns coming up, so anyone interested please contact Karen. She will go over everything with you. You can send your resume and application to her.
Saturday afternoon we went to Amanda's to wish her a happy 13th birthday. Her new mini horse Bentley will be fun to work. He's a little overweight, but he is a good looking all white mini. Happy Birthday Amanda and we'll see you next time you come back.
I've got ot get back to the barn.
Ride Fast... Take Chances!  tommie

      

First I wanted to post a photo that Chantal took of me and Maverick. I think it is awesome. For those of you who don't know Maverick, he is one of my three Australian Heeler Cattledogs I have. There is Bandit, Maverick and the newest addition is Cutaway. Bandit is pretty much retired, Maverick has a role in the movie "the Greening of Whitney Brown" with Kris Kristopherson and we do a live act with Blade as well. Maverick really helps me out during demos and goes and gets me a rootbeer from a cooler. Kids love to see him run and get excited about getting a root beer. Maverick loves to have a job, so anything I let him do, he loves it.

So many people asked me about how to train my dog to fetch a beer from the fridge that I made a video so anyone can teach their dog how to do it. You can find it on my website at www.equineextremistproshop.com. Maverick does such a great job getting a root beer for kids that we have his photo on bottles of HANSEN all natural soda.
 
You won't see the dogs at the FEI World Equestrian Games since they aren't allowing ANY dogs on property during the entire event. They will be waiting for us back at base camp. You'll see Mav at Cowboy Christmas in Vegas and the Western Stock show in Denver, plus a whole lot more next year. We've got a great show line up and will be all over the country. So make sure you come and say hi.
Chantal and I took time out today from our grueling schedule to take a canoe ride down the canals at Wiki Wachi. It was just what we needed to get our minds off of training and the move. Beautiful calm waters and manatees all around. We stopped at rope swings and tried them out. It was a blast. What a nice way to relax and enjoy nature and the water.(and it's 8 miles from the ranch!) Back to training and filming tommorrow. Ride Fast... Take Chances! tommie

      

Time sure flies, but things are getting back to normal. The star of the upcoming movie "the Greening of Whitney Brown", Odd Job Bob is here at Liberty Horse Ranch. We're getting ready for his movie debut. We've been doing a lot of training. Chantal put together the daily training program and it has been working out well. The interns are loving it here. We get to train, ride and take care of the horses in the morning, have lunch, then have off until 5p to avoid the heat, then back to work with the horses until sunset at 8p. We absolutely love it here, there is so much potential to do so much with the horses. It is always a lot of work moving to a new place. Not to mention trying to get a new hay supplier, shavings, grain, farrier, vet and tack store. I've already walked out of one feed store because of poor service. The lady wanted to know why I wanted to see the feed before I bought it. She said I couldn't open the bags, but there may be a few broken bags back there to look at. I had to walk myself to the back to the where the feed was kept. The guys in the back were great. They let me look at the feed and told me all about what they carried. The filled me in on what was good for hay around here as well. So, I was feeling pretty good until I walked up to the front counter again. The lady was looking down and ignored me until I said "hello?" She then said "well, how many do you want?". Now I don't ask for much, but I asked her if that is how she treats all her customers. She said yes, so I told her I couldn't do business with someone who doesn't want my business. I went to the next store and to my surprise, I found a mom and daughter who went out of their way to show me the feed and tell me about their business. They asked me about my horses which means they are interested in helping me.  It was a breath of fresh air to do business with someone who takes the time to care about me and my horses. I then got a call from our neighbor who was looking for hay as well. She got a few quotes, but said that one store she went in the lady wouldn't tell her the price unless she ordered it, since the prices change all the time.  What?  Guess which store it was? I'll give you 3 guesses, but you'll only need one. Again, this person may just be a clerk and doesn't understand people, but when I have a choice of who I do business with, I'm going to choose the place that I like and feel comfortable at. You don't have to roll out the red carpet or follow me around the store, but what I do care about is service and feeling welcome. The good thing about our new place is that I do have other places to go and there is a lot of options. 
I didn't want this to be a gripe session, I just want people to realize that the attitude they have reflects what they get back. It happens all the time in horse training. If you don't appreciate your horse or go at it half-heartedly, your horse will lose interest in you and won't work for you. When it's time to work, pay attention to your horse 100% and you will get 1000% more in return. If only the clerk understood that. Ride Fast... Take Chances! tommie

      

Wow, time sure flies when you're working and around here, every day is a work day. First for the big news... In June we purchased a new horse training facility in Brooksville, Florida. It tooks months and months of searching and looking at lots of places before we found the perfect place. We looked in Tennessee, Kentucky, Georgia, and Florida. When we were filming Walking Dead, I had to make a quick 450 mile drive to Florida to see the facility and as soon as I saw it, I knew it was the right place. We are going to miss a few things from Sterling, like the Forest Inn, the butcher shop, Cindy from the western store, our banker Gayle and Andy Younger from K's Korner. We want to say a special heart felt thanks to the owner of Double G, Gary Schreiner who gave us the opportunity to manage and live at his wonderful facility.  It helped get Clinton Anderson off to a good start and was good for us too, but as we grow we have other needs. My main love of this place is the barn and the pastures. There are 14 pastures with nicely shaded and very large trees to protect the horses from the sun. We are only 20 miles from the coast, so the breeze is cool. We have two deep wells on property, so the water is nice and cold (In Florida that is very rare) Each pasture, stall and paddock has automatic waterers, large soft dirt stalls, a hot walker, indoor and outdoor training area, miles of trails, and completely gated. Being that it was a race horse facility it does have a race track. I can't wait to take the boys out for a run on it. This is a perfect place for horses.  I hope to keep up the vision that Al Alesso had for this place. I can see that he really cared about and loved his horses by the way the place was layed out and the materials used. All the fences are hot wired and PVC for the safety of the horses. Secondly, it has areas for tack, training, students, interns and a classroom. And lastly, it has all the room we need to grow our business. This place is so big that the zero turn lawn mower has a diesel engine. I'll post picks once we get settled in. We're working hard to get it into shape again.


This is the main aisle of the barn with a nice rubber mat to walk the horses, concrete walkway for durability and ease of cleaning along with the nice dirt stalls. The barn is also set on a hill to keep any standing water away. Fans on every stall and they stalls are open all the way around so the horses can see each other and get the nice breeze.


This is the main drive to the house, office, garage, back barn, horse swimmer, and camping area. The trees keep the place nice and cool. I'll have more about the place as we get it up to speed. We have a ton of things planned for here, so we'll keep you posted.
WALKING DEAD UPDATE
Since the Walking Dead filming and my last post, Chantal and I have done clinics in Kentucky, went to see Ray and Terri at the Cook Forest Trail Ride, worked a PRCA rodeo, worked a PCB Rodeo, did a clinic in Chicago, did stunts with Blade on the set of "War Flowers", and moved 16 horses and our entire business 1250 south to Brooksville, Florida, It took 10 trips and we logged over 25,000 miles in the past 30 days just on the move alone, but it will all be worth it.  We have an incredible year shaping up for 2011 and an open house will be coming shortly. Hope you all can attend.

I just got the link for the Walking Dead preview reel. It was debuted at Comic Con a couple of weeks ago to incredible reviews. You can really see Blade and Andrew in the "city" shots. I'm the one doing the fast riding stunts, the rear, and the take down, but Andrew did a great job with the time I had training him to ride Blade. I think it is awesome in the shot where Andrew (the cop) is walking cautiously through the city and Blade has his ears up and checking it out too. Looks pretty cool. I am so proud of Blade and what he has become. Quite an accomplishment for a Mustang.  




Here is the preview from YouTube.   The video was recorded from the monitor at Comic Con. I think Frank Darabont has a winner on his hands with this. He has a great eye and feel. Enjoy!
Ride Fast... Take Chances!     tommie

      

Well, we wrapped all of the scenes with Blade. We got some incredible shots. Blade did a fantastic job with all the zombies piling on top of him.  While I was there in Conyers, I was contacted by Tracy Buckalew from Gaited Horse On-line magazine to do a story on me and my horses. As it turned out, she lived 30 minutes away, so I told her to come on over to see what I do. It is really hard to do interviews over the phone. It is hard to explain what I do in person, let alone over the phone or email. Tracy's arrival was a bit of a shock when she showed up in a beat up old truck. But I like the fact that she borrowed a friends old farm truck and drove 30 mins without air conditioning to get her story. She could have done it the easy way like most reporters do and talk on the phone. So, after a few minutes of teasing her about her "ride", she got a complete education on what I do with horses. You can read about it when the story hits in July. I'll link it here when it is posted. I just wanted to say thanks to Tracy for being a good listener and understanding why and what I do.
  
It was pretty hot here during filming, so I was glad I didn't have to put on zombie make up. My sister Kimberly and my Dad were my stunt safety with Blade, so they had to zombie-up and be part of the scene. Pretty scary stuff. Blade must of thought that these were the ugliest people he has ever seen as the mob of zombies devoured him (its a movie, it's not real folks).  Ride Fast... Take Chances!  

      

We were waiting for a few scenes, so I had to rest Blade next to the
trailer in the shade. It is going really good. We've got rehearsal
today and then on camera for the next few days after that, Looking
forward to the Van Bert Farms clinic coming up. Hope to see you there.
Make sure you go see Jonah Hex movie coming out June 18. You'll see me
and Blade. Ride fast... Take chances!

      

It has been really good here on the set. Atlanta has been hot, but I've been training Blade early in the mornings when its cool. Here is a practice shot of Blade rearing up at the training center. The Georgia clay gets to be a pain, trying to keep clean. It's a good thing he's a red roan, but his white legs get pretty red.

The main actor in the scenes I'll be shooting is Andrew Lincoln. I've been working with him to ride Blade, but I will also be doubling him as well. It is quite a challange training horses for movies, let alone people. Andrew will do well. Most actors are actually great students because they know how to take direction. It is also alot of fun to get Blade doing things he's never done. Whoever says that a movie set is "quiet" has never been on a movie set. We've got motorcycles, gunfire, mic booms, and lots of people running around and his attention has to be on me. I believe every horse should be able to handle noise, scary objects and distractions by looking to me (or their rider) for the answer. 
 
This is Andrew Lincoln in costume riding Blade. It's typical on movies that you train for a shot and then 10 minutes before you are about to shoot, someone from wardrobe or set dress comes along and tosses a backback into the mix. On Jonah Hex, we rehearsed the transfer from horse to the train in costume (which was very hot in New Orleans) and then at the last minute they handed us these very heavy boots, trenchcoats and burlap sack masks and said that we had to do the stunts with them on. I learned that you gotta be ready, both you and the horse for anything.

Blade got busted for parking in a tow zone. Well, he is a Mustang. We've got a day off tomorrow, so I hope to get a bunch of stuff done. Looking forward to the Clinic at Van Bert Farms and the one in St Charles during the PCB Rodeo. Plus we've got the Ponca, Nebraska PRCA Rodeo to perform at in 2 weeks as well. Gotta Ride.  Ride Fast... Take Chances! 

      

Things are going great. We started shooting the series today. We did a cannon roll over today. No horses, just a car with a nitrogen cannon device underneath that is triggered to flip the car over. The weather has been perfect, but I really hate the traffic here. It reminds me a lot of Los Angeles. I'll get some photos up as soon as I can.
Ride Fast...