This was not a seminar for the fair weather horseman. A cool rainy weekend greeted devoted seminar attendees, but seemed not to dampen the enthusiasm of either them or their seminarians. Our guests traveled from points afar (such as the states of Washington, Texas, & Arkansas), as well as from England, France, & Switzerland) and from across the Southeast & across the county.
They asked tough questions, and they asked intelligent questions.

Sheila Varian came in from the Central Valley of California, Liz Bentley traveled in from Missouri, Johanna Ullstrom (with Jeremy in tow) flew in earlier in the week (to get some time in with her Egyptian Event string) from Brussels, & Mike Wilson and Peri Tilghman came up from central Florida. They maintained a spirited dialogue throughout the entire two days that was informative, fascinating, and often very funny.

In addition to Nancy Pierce’s wonderful photographs, we thank Christy Hazel and our dear friend Amy Austin for
their photographic contributions.

Demonstrations with Talaria horses covered topics such as beginning halter, identifying characteristics that indicated futures in specific performance disciplines, show clipping, techniques to improve performance, and all was demonstrated with an emphasis on
reward rather than punishment based training.

Saturday night’s presentation featured some of Talaria’s 2009 show string, Madhin Nile Moons’ two beautiful new-born foals out of Botswana daughters Nairobi and Star of Afrika, and Afrikhan Alkhemi’s exotic first foal – a lovely daughter out of Maya Naufali, and, of course, Afrikhan Shah’s first three foals – you must see them to believe them. The new foals all represented the breeding progeny of the main man still – Botswana.

Two hot breakfasts, lunches, and Saturday night’s cocktails and dinner were prepared and served by that incredible pair – Jane and John. It gets better and better. A special thank-you to Jane and John for the private dinner Friday evening, in honor of our seminarians and a few very special guests. It was prepared and formally served and it was over the top.

Yes, it WAS More Fun than a Barrel of Monkeys, but no, HE is not the proverbial monkey on your back, nor was it a weekend of Monkey Business.