Eve Alexander

Animal Training Examiner
Interview: Sue De Laurentis - rehabilitating an abused
Tennessee Walking Horse

July 24th, 2009 6:29 pm ET
Following up on the story of tortured Tennessee Walking Horse, Mr. Biggs, I interviewed Sue De
Laurentis of Imagine A Horse about the Visten Project.
Sue, tell us a little bit about your background and how you got into horse training.
Sue De Laurentis and Allen Pogue of Imagine A Horse.
I rode my first horse at the age of 18 months and am still riding now at the age of 58. My parents
were cattle ranchers and I grew up with horses. But it wasn't until the age of 40 that I started really
thinking about riding. I spent every dime I had studying classical riding and how it relates to trail
riding. And I trained all my own horses. About 9 years ago, I met Allen Pogue and when I saw the
trick training he was doing, I was blown away! He taught me everything I know about trick training,
and in the course of things, we became a couple.
I own a boarding facility and I saw a need for people to learn the kinds of things I learned from Allen.
There are a lot of adult riders who love their horses very much - they come to the barn every day
and groom their horses - but sometimes there's not a good match between the person and the
horse, or they have fear issues. I teach them how to do pedestal training and some tricks and it
makes a huge difference. It not only changes the dynamic between the human and the horse, but
also between the human and other humans. Sometimes people's self-confidence is low because
they feel like a failure, and you come along and show them how to succeed. You give people a
chance to change their relationship with their horse. Their fear dissipates and they start to ride. A
trick trained horse is a reliable mount because the training develops a horse who is more intelligent
and more obedient.
Since my primary career was marketing, I talked to Allen about creating a packaged training course.
He was resistant at first - he likes to keep his life simple, but finally he agreed, and we started
making training DVDs. (Available here)
How did you get involved with Tennessee Walking Horses?
One hot afternoon I was sitting in the golf cart with a friend admiring a group of our horses. Some
folks showed up and wanted to see our boarding facility.
As I toured them around the property, my friend blurted out, "We have trick trained horses here." The
woman visitor noted the horses had the same brand as her initials, SC. That was my parent's brand I didn't put it together yet that SC was the famous Sheryl Crow!
Sue De Laurentis trained Lady C, here with owner Sheryl Crow.
It ended up that Sheryl moved her spotted Tennessee Walking horse mare, Lady C, to my barn.
Lady C was challenging under saddle, so I started trick training her and was surprised by how
quickly she learned it. Sheryl told me to take her along as far as I wanted, and I did. She was the
easiest horse I ever trick trained. I'll share with you a video where Lady C fetches a frisbee, brings it
to the pedestal, looks at me for the cue what to do with it, does it, and returns to the pedestal - all at
liberty. That's 8 or 9 separate behaviors. She is an amazing horse! After that, Allen and I have had
the chance to train other gaited horses, and we noticed those breeds have an extraordinary ability to
learn new behaviors quickly, and they have the physical capability to do moves like the Spanish
Walk. We featured Lady C in some articles and have gotten an overwhelming response from gaited
horse owners for more information about trick training gaited horses.
Visten's mental and physical abilities improve with trick training.
What is the Visten Project?
For years I had been courting FOSH (Friends of Sound Horses) with the idea to start and train a
gaited horse humanely, to serve as an ambassador for the sound training movement. About a year
ago they agreed to the project and donated a horse - Visten, a black Tennessee Walking Horse
yearling rescue. Visten had been badly abused. He had been confined to a stall his entire short life,
malnourished and beaten around the head. As a result of the abuse he has a learning disability as
well as being developmentally delayed. We decided to go ahead with Visten, despite of his
deficiency in motor skills and his short attention span. Had he continued in the Big Lick training he'd
already be under saddle now at 14 months. But instead he has learned to fetch, stand on the
pedestal, perform the jambette, balance on the kickboard and do some things at liberty. He is so
proud of himself when he achieves even a small accomplishment and we're proud of him too. Trick
training is helping develop his mental ability. Every horse is an individual and has value. Visten will
be exhibition trained to the best of his ability. In the meantime I got a well-bred and cared for
palomino Missouri Foxtrotter named Boullet to be Visten's understudy. They are best buddies. We
call them "The Tale of Two Horses".
Boullet enjoys using the kickboard to stretch his legs.
What do you think of the Big Lick, soring and the usual way TWHs are trained?
I would never train a horse that way. And soring is still a big problem. There was more soring in 2008
than any other year since it became illegal. Besides soring, some people deliberately induce
continuous, slight laminitis in their horses to get the unnatural movement.
Can you humanely train a horse to perform that exaggerated action?
We can train them to develop their strength and range of motion to achieve their full potential of
reach and lift. We use the kickboard. The kickboard is like the barre in a dance studio. The horses
stretch their legs on it. They really enjoy it.
How can we follow Visten's process?
FOSH has a page here: http://www.fosh.info/sound.html
On my website go here:
http://www.imagineahorse.com/ImagineWebsite/FriendsofSoundHorsesVistenProject.htm
Sue, thank you very much for taking the time to tell us about the Visten Project. I've admired Allen
Pogue for many years, but probably would never have heard of him if you had not come along with
your own personal horse experience and your marketing expertise to create Imagine A Horse. I've
got some of your DVDs and recently reviewed "Using Treats as a Training Tool" which, I must say, is
the very best training DVD investment I've ever made.