About-Kerry-Kuhn

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About Kerry

Kerry’s passion for horses and training started at a very young age and has grown into a lifelong pursuit. He was born in Medicine Lodge, KS, in 1975 and has worked with horses ever since. At the age of 12, Kerry started his first two year old colt with the help of his grandfather, Dale Lukens. From then on, Kerry was motivated to learn as much as he could about communicating with horses and spent many days working horses and gathering cattle for local ranches with Dale. In high school, Kerry competed in rodeo as a calf, team and steer roper. He also spent several years training young thoroughbreds at a local racetrack.

This diverse background built Kerry’s passion and love for communicating with horses and led him to see how important it was to help others become better leaders and communicators with their horses. Since the mid 90’s, Kerry has held horsemanship demonstrations and clinics at events such as Equine Affaire, Equifest of Kansas, the American Royal and the Missouri Equine Expo. Kerry has also been a national ambassador for Purina Mills’ Equine Influential Team for many years and given numerous Horse Owner Workshop (HOW) demonstrations around the country.

Kerry’s ability with both a horse and an audience have led him to be a guest clinician at the Tennessee Walking Horse Celebration, the featured clinician at the inaugural Arizona Horse Fair and Expo, and a judge for Craig Cameron’s Extreme Cowboy Race World Finals. He served as the official clinician on “Best of America by Horseback” for several years, a popular show on RFD-TV. Kerry has also won numerous colt starting competitions in the last few years as these events have gained in popularity. His victories include Equine Experience (CA), the American Royal (MO) and most recently Equifest (KS).

My Approach to Horsemanship, by Kerry Kuhn

“From the time I was a little kid, whenever I had a chance to spend time with my granddad and his horses, I was there. As I got a little older, he started taking me with him to check cattle. I’m sure I didn’t always make things easy by being there, but he always took the time to show me what he was trying to do and always found a way to make me feel useful. I’ll never forget how positive that experience was and have tried to make it one of my main objectives when working with others and their horses.

My granddad also liked to tell stories about how they did things when he was growing up. These were things like how rank colts would be snubbed to a saddle horse so he or his brother could get on them or how they would even tie up a hind leg in order to get one saddled or how once they got the saddle on, the colt would be turned loose and the guy on the broke horse would haze the colt using farm machinery! I guess round pens hadn’t become popular yet. Granddad always encouraged me to look for the easiest way, though, and it was his influence that sparked a desire in me to work with a horse and not against him, which is a big part of what we refer to today as ‘horsemanship’. This practical philosophy has become the basis for our entire training program.

In high school, one of my teachers gave me a video of Sam Powell doing a round pen demonstration. I will never forget watching him crawl on that 3 year old filly with nothing on her head and letting her go. I was amazed at the confidence he showed in that little mare. I began to take some of the things my granddad had shown me and challenged myself not to get in the horse’s way. This produced wreck after wreck at first, but over time, I started to see major changes in my horse’s attitude towards me, although not every horse reacted the same way or in the same amount of time. These early experiences taught me that there is much more to your horse than what you can see. There’s a lot going on in his mind as they search for good, safe leadership. It also taught me that every horse was unique and that I would need to tailor my approach for each one. In the years since, we’ve adopted this same personal approach to our training to include riders as well as horses and are thrilled with the results we’ve seen.

I’ve often found that as we try to improve our horsemanship, it can radiate out into our everyday lives and beyond. Horsemanship is all about good leadership, patience and learning to be positive no matter what the situation. It is a skill we should LIVE every day. I thank my granddad for helping me understand this and I look forward to helping you strive for it as well.”

Kerry

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