Welcome to TRAINING FOUR LIFE. TRAINING FOUR LIFE is our strategy to training horses to last a life time. While our emphasis is on training horses, you will find that we are also developing TRAINING FOUR LIFE to meet the spiritual needs of horsemen and equestrians. Please visit our website often and check out the updates, we have many exciting things in the works!

Located in Caledonia, Michigan, we have a fourteen stall barn, a 60x100 foot indoor riding arena, an outside riding arena and several turn out paddocks. Our new winter facility is in the process of being built in Myakka City, Florida. We look forward to working out of our new farm during the winter months. Myakka City is about twenty minutes east of Bradenton.

TRAINING FOUR LIFE developed after a national equine publication featured our horse, Hes Just To Sharp, in an article. The article focused on older horses who had successful futurity careers and are still winning. This article prompted many discussions with customers and friends about why my horses have lasted so long. Hes Just To Sharp, WORLD CHAMPION AND RESERVE WORLD CHAMPION, is nineteen this year, still looks great, and is ready to hit the circuit again. Hes Just To Sharp is a Western Pleasure legend and his accomplishments are to numerous to mention. At eighteen, he was AQHA'S Region Four Champion in Senior Western Pleasure, qualified for the World show in Senior Western Pleasure, Select Western Pleasure and Amateur Western Pleasure. His maternal brother, Face A Big Leaguer, is twenty this year, and outside of being bothered by very dusty conditions, looks great and is ready to go. Face A Big Leaguer has Superiors in Western Pleasure, Trail and All-Around. Lopin Leaguer, by Face A Big Leaguer, was one of our top futurity horses that my family raised. He is a legend in AQHA in the All-Around events. He is a multiple Congress Champion, numerous All-Around Championships at the Congress, including this past years All-Around titles in the Novice Amateur and Select Amateur. An Awesome Leaguer, another futurity horse we raised and trained, had numerous top 10 placings at the Congress in Senior Hunter Under Saddle and the Amateur events.

During the past two years, I have judged several large open shows in preparation for my breed cards. During this time, requests from clients needing lessons with their horses, really began to grow. While judging, I saw that the mistakes being made in the arena by exhibitors were the same mistakes that my students were making, I soon discovered that as I taught my students my training philosophies, we were fixing many common problems in a timely fashion. Training FOUR Life focuses on FOUNDATION, OPPORTUNITY, UNDERSTANDING, and REMEMBER. I believe in keeping a basic program that my horses, customers, and students, can apply and understand. Every horse needs a solid FOUNDATION to learn from, and as riders, we need to create an OPPORTUNITY to teach our horses what we would like them to learn. We need to make sure that our sessions are simple so that our horses will UNDERSTAND what we are trying to teach them, and, most importantly, we want them to REMEMBER their foundation and what we have taught them.

Kathy and I also believe that God created each and every one of us for a specific purpose in this world. Several years ago I resigned from my secure, and lucrative, sales career of seventeen years. I renewed my teaching certification, turned in my amateur status, and set out to pursue my teaching career which I planned to supplement with horse training on the side. Well, the training took off and I had a barn full of training horses before I knew it. As I look back through my childhood I now realize that the Lord wired me, and desired me, to be in some form of spiritual leadership. When I was little I used to "preach" and "lead" my family at our Holiday gatherings. Many years ago I almost left the horse industry to concentrate on my career, however, the Lord had other plans! (Jeremiah 29:11) As my "training for a life time approach" began to take shape, I felt God urging us to incorporate my training program with a parallel spiritual program.

We believe that we all need a strong FOUNDATION in our Lord and Savior, Jesus Christ. We believe that we need to seek every OPPORTUNITY in life to let his light shine. We believe that when people UNDERSTAND that salvation is a gift from God, it is easy to REMEMBER who we belong to and where we will return.

God Bless.