About Us
Expert horse trainer Rex Peterson brings 50 years of experience working with horses, riders, and a wide range of riding styles – Western, English, Dressage, Trick Riding (from the age of 7-24 around the world), Rodeo, Driving, and Harness – in both the movie industry and with private clients.
With over four decades of experience training horses for film, Rex has become an actor favorite, often sought after in Hollywood as the horse wrangler. His best known work includes Black Beauty, The Horse Whisperer, Hidalgo, Flicka, Dreamer, Appaloosa, All the Pretty Horses, The Ring, The Patriot, Buddy, Crazy Horse, Far and Away, Sylvester, Three Amigos, Runaway Bride and The Black Stallion. His tremendous patience, kindness and understanding allow Rex to train horses to do what others claim impossible.
Rex is an expert at starting colts, using his method of training that does not allow a horse to buck–ever. Rex believes all problems with horses are made by man, as the horse is born a blank chalkboard and everything the trainer writes on the board both good and bad. Because he starts horses correctly, they become gentle and easy to ride. Rex is also an expert at fixing problem horses, often taking in horses other trainers give up on and teaching them to be gentle and useful in their discipline.
In a world where most trainers focus on one discipline, Rex is unique in that he can improve any horse from any area of the horse world. He does not believe in the expression of “I can’t”, either you will try or you won’t, anything is possible. Rex loves a challenge. Once he was told it was impossible to hook up a team of ten horses with four, three, two and a leader. He went out and successfully built the team. Another time he was given a talented show jumper that had a wicked stop in him, Rex re-schooled him to jump a pick-up truck for a movie and when the main cast horse was unable to perform in the show jumping scene, this horse went in and jumped around clean. There are countless stories of horses such as these that Rex taught to perform at a high levels of performance safely and consistently.
Cari Swanson is a USDF Silver Medalist in Dressage, FEI competitor, eventing competitor through Preliminary, and a Graduate of the USDF “L” Education Program for Judge Training. Cari trains and sells dressage, event, jumper and pleasure horses and is actively involved in the Horse Rescue, Rehabilitation and Retirement Foundation.
Cari bases her training philosophy on classical dressage training with emphasis on the rider’s seat and position and elastic feeling hands. The horse’s well-being and positive attitude are the most important criteria for training. With a solid methodology and creative teaching style drawn from several disciplines, a unique program is designed for individuals resulting in a happy, healthy and safe horse and rider combination.
Cari’s equestrian expertise has expanded by working with top film and television producers and directors on the East Coast. She worked with Academy Award winner Ang Lee on his upcoming film “Taking Woodstock” (2009). She has provided horses for documentaries and television as well. This work in front of the camera demonstrates the high level of mastery Cari Swanson has attained in her career. A combination of talented and highly trained horses with a masterful trainer is demanded when working with inexperienced actors in front of cameras for long days of production.
Together Cari and Rex founded this production company to create a series of training DVD’s for anyone interested in continuing to learn about the human horse connection. They are developing a TV show featuring extreme horse training and teaching the average rider how to solve any problem with their horses. Each episode will begin with Rex asking the horse to do whatever the program is about at liberty, for example the first episode is about trailering. He will send the horse down the arena and tell him “to get in the trailer”. The next segment is training a horse who has not been handled, a blank slate, how to load, finally the last segment is solving the problem horses who will not go into the trailer. Each episode will build on the training techniques Rex has developed over the years to create a well trained horse that anyone can ride. Viewers will tune in each week to see how the young horse has progressed and witness re-schooling the problem children. The exciting aspect about this horse training show is that this team will take the viewers around the world into any arena of the horse world; jumping, dressage, driving, horse racing, western, reining, etc. They both ride english or western, jumping or dressage, always at ease on any horse.
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