Well-known trainer and horseman Mike Kevil has been announced as the second competitor in The Mane Event, Trainers’ Challenge, the colt starting competition, at the upcoming expo at Westerner Park in Red Deer, AB, April 27-29, 2012.
Arizona horse trainer and author, Kevil, has over 30 years experience starting colts and changing the behaviour of older horses. He has a unique point of view. His first hand knowledge of traditional training methods, combined with his curiosity and research on the latest trends, gives him a broad perspective.
Kevil started colts for top trainers including the likes of Don Dodge and Al Dunning. Al Dunning says, “Mike Kevil is one of the few horsemen who can get the job done on horseback and relate to people in understandable terms.”
Today, Kevil merges the old with the new as he continues to learn from the horses that he still trains full time. All of this enables him to weed out flawed techniques, and to understand and explain why the good methods work.
Kevil has travelled all over the U.S. and Europe working with all breeds of horses and all disciplines, including Arizona prisons where he teaches detainees the art of gentling Bureau of Land Management (BLM) mustangs. The types of horses that he rides covers the spectrum. It’s not unusual for him to step off an Arabian park horse, then onto a rope horse to heel a few steers, then to a young cutter or reiner that some top trainer thinks has great enough potential to warrant being started by Kevil.
He has judged the colt starting competition Road to the Horse in Tennessee three times and even competed in the competition in 2008. He was also the winner of The Mane Event Trainers’ Challenge in Chilliwack in 2010, competing against Josh Lyons and five-time winner Doug Mills.
Kevil is also the author of two books and DVDs on starting colts, Volume 1 and 2 and has been featured in Western Horseman magazine. He has also worked in television, hosting the RFD-TV show Equine You Asked For It and appearing on many other programs such as The Horse Show with Rick Lamb. He is currently developing new television and DVD-based projects to help educate viewers on working with horses and cattle.
For more information on the other clinicians, tickets and show hours visit www.maneeventexpo.com or call (250) 578-7518.