OKEECHOBEE -- Australian horse trainer Mark Langley was in Okeechobee County June 28-30 as part of his USA Horsemanship Tour.

This was Langley’s first U.S. tour, said Stephany Fish Crossman. Stephany and her husband Chris own Rough Diamond Ranch, which hosted the clinic. She said a friend who went to Australia to work with Langley connected her with the “horse whisperer.” Langley has an international reputation and has worked with thousands of horses. The horsemanship clinic in Okeechobee was limited to eight participants, and the slots filled up quickly.

Rough Diamond Ranch has a ranch house which operates as an Airbnb. The clinic participants and their horses stayed at the ranch for the weekend. A large, covered arena provided protection from the sun and rain. Stephany said they are also building an apartment connected to the arena. The goal is to turn the facility into an equestrian destination.

Participants came from all over Florida for the three-day clinic.  Langley’s clinics are open to riders of all ages and experience levels -- from beginners to advanced -- and to all types of horses.

Langley’s website explains his approach: “Helping horses to learn is a big basis to my philosophy – not just helping them to be better at performance – but helping them to gain confidence in themselves and confidence in people and the ideas that they present to horses. There are so many horses of different breeds within various disciplines that are carrying worry and emotional tension which inevitably spills out into their performance, and which causes a disconnection between horse and handler. Much of this tension has been caused by the way people have presented education and guidance to their horses.  Gaining and guiding a horse’s calm focus is one of the biggest things that I want people to understand. Without understanding and gaining a horse’s focus, their tension levels constantly go up and down and our guiding aids just become interruptions that end up getting in the way of a horse’s primary intention.”

At the clinic on Saturday, he put a lot of emphasis on connecting to the horse through the lead rope or through the reins.

“I’ve seen a lot of horses go into a horse trailer because the trainer makes it a bad place to be outside,” he said. “The horse should be happy on the lead rope.

“If we reward a horse for moving away from anxiety, we reward the fear,” he explained.

Over the weekend, Langley worked individually with each horse and rider for two lessons each day. One rider told Langley her horse was great on the trails but had problems in the arena. Another said the horse was fine at the barn but as soon as they got to a trail where there were other horses and people, problems arose.

One horse was full of energy and hard to keep to a slow walk.

“I’ve ridden hundreds of hot horses down, until I realized how to ride them up,” said Langley. He said you must show the horse how to be soft.

“Some horses don’t know what soft is. You can’t expect them to come back to it. They’ve never breathed and softened at a standstill.

“To find the soft place, you have to show them where it is,” he said. You must teach them to trust the lead rope.

“I don’t want their full attention,” he said. “I want their awareness. You’re directing their thoughts, but when they’ve got long thoughts, nervous thoughts, you have to bring them back.”

One horse owner said she had difficulty getting her horse to stand at the mounting block.

“Some people use positive reinforcement, some people use negative reinforcement to get the horse to the mounting block,” Langley said. “I chose to lead it to the mounting block.”

Nancy Slater, of Nancy Slater Natural Horsemanship in Lake Wales, who was a Parelli Horsemanship instructor for 10 years, brought a mare named Jewels to the clinic. “I’ve learned more in one-and-a-half days,” she said. “I’ve been working with this mare for nine years trying to help her with her tendencies to run away and push into pressure. Mark gave me a different way of thinking. I’m very excited about the future.

She said she has been trying to “find what I was missing” with Jewels for years. She said the clinic “got us unstuck. Now the sky’s the limit!”

In the United States, other stops on the tour include Idaho, Utah, Minnesota and Virginia.