Amy Walls has been training horses and their people since 1995. Along the way she has learned many lessons including the best teacher is the student and for this reason Amy can often be found attending or on her way to attending another clinic.
As a student of Pat Parelli she made it Level II and acquired many ground skills.
After time spent with Pat and learning a great deal, Amy moved onto a well known Ray Hunt taught trainer and instructor, Lee Smith who is accredited with teaching her students to not only to watch what she does, but to also learn to see what she is seeing and work with the new found knowledge. Amy‘s spent a great deal of time studying with Lee, day-in, day-out, through tough times with difficult horses and through triumphs when the same troubled horses became soft and supple willing partners. During Amy‘s time with Lee she learned to first understand, then be understood.
Ray Hunt is another of Amy‘s highly respected instructors and teachers. He has a simple, no-fuss approach to working with horses and people — Pay attention to what the horse is telling you and do not force the horse to conform to your own opinions. He also is a firm believer it is better to get on the colt as soon as possible when starting rather than using redundancy from the ground. Amy has been an active participant in many of Ray‘s clinics in the past several years and has continued to take home more good and practical knowledge each time.
When starting young horses, Amy is on them very quickly, within just a couple of days after beginning working with them. The colts do not have time to become bored or see old, familiar environment as Amy is a firm believer in taking the colts out of the arena and round pen and into the world. When a colt is started with Amy, expect the horse will see all types of surroundings, i.e. trails, creeks, cattle drives, team penning events, parades, etc. When Amy has completed 30 days of instruction with the colt, exposure to new and exciting environments is not something you will wish she would have done.
In addition to Pat Parelli, Lee Smith and Ray Hunt, Amy has also studied with John Lyons. Under John‘s instruction Amy learned to take a no nonsense approach to training both the horse and their respective humans.
Other clinicians Amy has either participated in clinics with or audited are Chris Cox and Dennis Reis.
When working with people, Amy listens and observes what the student is telling and showing her and responds accordingly. The interest of the horse/human relationship strengthening is always at the front of all her thinking.