Bit About Matt

I was raised on a large cattle ranch in central Nevada. At an early age, I began riding horses to help gather, brand and work cattle on the family ranch. The ranch work was very demanding and required a lot of time and miles on horseback to operate. This gave me a lot of experience in the saddle and also it gave me a huge amount of experience with different horses as we had to continually rotate horses to keep them sound. Every winter, I helped start around a dozen colts so we could use them in the spring to help move and distribute cattle to their allotments. I started my first colt at the age of eight and used him for several years. This first colt “Bronco” gave me a lifelong desire to start and train horses that still continues to this day. During my high school years, I trained and exercised a few thoroughbreds and was the jockey in a race as well.

I have received my bachelors degree in Agriculture Business Management from Oregon State University. To finish my degree, an internship was required, so I signed up on an international work exchange program. This program placed me on a cattle station in Far North Queensland, Australia where I worked with cattle and also trained several horses during my stay. The cattle station had several Australian stock horses to start and also I worked with two Australian Brumbies. By the time I left the cattle station, almost all the horses that needed to be started were well under saddle and a few were being ridden by the young kids on the station.

After college, my agriculture degree led me to a few jobs dealing with crops and farming. I worked for Western Farm Service in LaGrande, Oregon as a pesticide applicator which consisted of spraying fields with herbicides, pesticides and insecticides. Also, Spreading fertilizer was one of the requirements of the job. This gave me a lot of experience with equipment and machinery. Another farm job that I did for a few years was working on an alfalfa see farm. This was general labor of irrigating, field work, harvesting and processing of the finished clean product. It wasn’t long before I changed the course of my life and followed my childhood dream and began training horses full-time. I have trained horses continually since childhood, but I began training for the public full-time since 2007.

I have trained several different breeds of horses.  By training for the public, you get a wide range of horses and each breed has a different disposition and feel.  I have learned a lot from each breed, from Arabians to Quarter Horses and from Gypsy Vanners to Mustangs.  Over time I have gradually moved into more competitions and shows.  I have competed in western pleasure, trail, halter, showmanship,reining, extreme trail, ranch work, western horsemanship, bareback equitation, barrels, pole bending, and western riding.  In 2009 and 2010 I was awarded Versatility Champion award with the stallion EZ to Love.  By showing in these events, it has finessed me as a rider and I continue to learn from each horse.