Understanding the animal
By CAITLIN GRAVESON / North County Correspondent
Jack Burns has been always known that he wanted to work with horses.
He grew up in Kansas and was introduced to riding at his grandparent’s farm when he was 3 years old. He competed in his first horse show when he was 8.
Now training and shoeing horses from his home base in Windsor, Burns says, “I have never had a doubt. I always wanted to work with horses. Horses have always been the most important career choice for me, personally and professionally.”
Burns has more than 20 years of experience, arriving in Sonoma County in 1995.
“Horses were the reason I moved out here,” he says. “There are so many horses here and a lot of good professionals. There is more of everything going on here — Western riding, English riding.
“I was really impressed by the quantity and quality and just the caliber of activities going on in the North Bay. And that’s why I decided to stay.”
At Chalk Hill Ranch, Burns trains clients in dressage and three-day eventing, a competition composed of dressage, object jumping and stadium jumping. But he also has built a client base throughout the area.
“This business is primarily word-of-mouth marketing. If someone likes what you do then, you will get referred,” he says.
Most important is his personalized relationship with clients. Burns notes that although each trainer is working from the same fundamental principles, style and techniques vary.
He focuses on the horse first. “My outlook on the training is that it is our job first and foremost to take care of the horses, to understand their nature mentally and physically, and to develop and strengthen those mental and physical aptitudes so they can do what we ask of them better.”
The relationship between horse and rider is also important, he says. “From that you get a creative expression.”
Burns’ emphasis on understanding the horse was particularly effective with his client Margart Wrensch. Wrensch’s horse Equidor suffered from a neck injury that prevented him from lifting his head. Burns was introduced to Equidor at the Sonoma Equestrian Center in Glen Ellen and offered to helped with the rehabilitation process.
“We had a fabulous experience with Jack,” Wrensch says. “He is one of the kindest trainers I have ever met in my life. Equidor adores him and follows him around like a best friend.”
Burns was able to build up Equidor’s strength to the point where he could enter competitions, finishing in fourth place in his first three-day event.
“It was because he has total confidence in Jack,” Wrensch says. Burns was successful with Equidor, she says, because he combines “competency and compassion.”
At 15, Equidor is not a young horse, she adds, and he has issues that require understanding and skill.
“I think that this is the first time in his life he is achieving his potential,” Wrensch says. “The best luck Equidor has had in his life was finding Jack.”
For more information about Burns, visit JBequine.com.
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