>>>> Walter Jr is the trainer coming to teach the trainers course in the US >>>> which is why his name has come up on this list recently. He is >>>> extremely demanding of horses and IMO quite hard on them, however, I >>>> was seen as way to soft so it is all in the eyes of the beholder and >>>> what you are willing to do to achieve what you want.
To put that in perspective though, Cary and I were considering breeding a few Icelandic's after meeting the lovely horses that Anneliese has at Unicorn Valley. She didn't have any more mares to sell at the time after I bought Sina, so she suggested that we travel to visit Robyn, who would have plenty of horses for us to check out. We did, and Robyn paired Cary and me with their trainer, Christine Schwartz, for the 3-4 days that we were in BC. Had Robyn paired me with someone who trains like what I see in Walter Feldman's videos, I would not currently own 20 Icelandic Horses, no doubt about it. I've sent in so many pictures of my good friend Shirley, who helps me with my horses about once a week, so I think the list knows how gentle and quiet she is with the horses, even those people who've never met her. While we were at the Icelandic Horse Farm, Cary paid Christine a wonderful compliment - he called her "the German Shirley." :) If we'd wanted horses that had to be trained via strong-armed tactics, I wouldn't have traveled across the continent to find more of this wonderful, gentle breed. I'm so happy that the first people I talked about in conjunction with training/breeding Icelandics were Anneliese and Christine. (Coincidentally, both German, and both very gentle and intuitive!) Karen Thomas, NC
