# Warwick Schiller DVD's



## SteadyOn (Mar 5, 2017)

You can try a subscription to his website free for a week. (You just have to cancel after that first week to avoid auto-renewing if you don't want to keep going with it. It's about $25-30 a month after that if I recall correctly.) The subscription might be of more value than the DVDs as you get the entire video library.

I'm currently subscribed on the site, and he's currently my favourite of the somewhat well-known trainers. He's patient, thorough, and has excellently timed pressure and release. His methods are easy to follow and I've seen good results with everything of his that I've tried. He's also very active on his Facebook group and answers almost every user question I've ever seen posted there. Seems like a genuinely nice, smart guy who cares about the horses and doing the best by them.


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## Foxhunter (Feb 5, 2012)

I have been watching many on YouTube, I like the way he works. 

He takes in the psychology. I guess that I agree with him because he believes in working on the little things and getting them correct before asking bigger questions. If the little things are in place, I.e. The horse is relaxed, the major problems do not happen or go away if they have been established.


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## Boo Walker (Jul 25, 2012)

He has a timeless kind of approach so I think you can't go wrong with the DVD series. There are many "fad" trainers who seem to spend more effort selling you special sticks and gimics. 

Warwick's methods are solid now and will still serve you well twenty years from now. I also like how humble he is. He'll freely admit he's still learning and refining his perspective. For me, that's what horsemanship is all about. Not reaching the mythical top and collecting praise, but working it every day always looking for ways to improve yourself.


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## Knave (Dec 16, 2015)

I really like him. My littlest girl won access to his new principles series, and it is spectacular. I was worried she would struggle with the concepts, but even at her age she can understand and practice the principles. Sometimes there are basic things that we forget to tell a kid, or even to think about, and I can see a major improvement in her overall methods.

I definitely learn a ton watching him myself.


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## SilverMaple (Jun 24, 2017)

I don't have the DVDs, but I do subscribe to his video series on his website, and it's wonderful. Start from the beginning, though, even if you think your horse is far beyond that point. It's worth it.


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## AndyTheCornbread (Feb 3, 2019)

First post on here but I would echo what the others have said. Subscribe to his online video service if you haven't already. Start from the ground up on the "relationship" path on his video site. I use his principles and methods with all my horses that come from multiple disciplines from dressage to roping to back country trail riding / packing and they work well for all of them. He is a very humble and studious person who empowers you to be a better horseman by working with your horse. He reminds me a bit of Mark Rashid in that way. I have been a subscriber to his videos for a long time but do not have a facebook account so I can tell you about his videos but not his facebook presence. My oldest sons are going to go see him at the Washington horse expo in March. They both really enjoy his teaching as well. One of these days if he ever has a clinic near enough to me I'd like to go at least watch one of his clinics, even if I wasn't an active participant. He replies quickly to any questions I have ever sent him, and for those of us with no facebook accounts he makes a "best of facebook Q&A" pdf from time to time and mails it out so that you can read through a lot of common Q&A type stuff with himself and people asking him questions on his facebook group.


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## MajorSealstheDeal (Jan 4, 2011)

I would also echo what others have said here, I am a subscriber to his online video library and really enjoy it. The videos range from 20 minutes to 45 minutes. I much prefer that to sitting down for two or three hour long DVD's. 

The best part of Schiller, is how easy it is to relate to him. He describes training moments where he has struggled and how he has adapted his methods over time. How encouraging to hear a top trainer say they had a tough go with such and such a horse, and spent a month doing this, etc.


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## AtokaGhosthorse (Oct 17, 2016)

Having heard of him here, I went looking on youtube. I LIKE what I see and he's very astute on the study of horses and how they react and act, and why. I really like his manner of handling horses, and I think it would be a good investment - I'd also suggest trying out the free subscription for a week.


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## Joel Reiter (Feb 9, 2015)

Schiller is the featured presenter at this year's Minnesota Horse Expo so I'm looking forward to learning more about him. He's doing a one-day clinic on the Thursday preceding the event and I will audit if I get the chance.


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## Joel Reiter (Feb 9, 2015)

I did get to audit the clinic he did on Thursday at the MN Horse Expo. It was quite different from other clinics I've seen. Participants did not all get in the arena at the same time -- they entered three at a time for two hours or so, and the rest of the time they were auditors just like the rest of us. That's good and bad -- I think a lot of horses probably shut down running around terrified all day for three days in a crowded arena, but if I made a long haul I might wish my horse had gotten more than two hours with the clinician. Even in that two hours he really only worked with one horse at a time, and was usually not dealing with the same issue in all three horses, so the other two were standing around waiting for their turn. And throughout, he spent a lot of time just talking.


One of his best demonstrations was about recognizing and correcting problems related to horses' desire to get back to the gate or be with other horses in the arena. He said many, many riders are trying to correct horses for dropping a shoulder or changing speed when the real issue is horses lean toward the place they want to be, and speed up when they're approaching it and slow down when they're moving away from it. Make the whole arena a happy place for the horse and the problems of rating speed, etc. will go away.



As others have said, Schiller is humble and not afraid to talk about how he has changed his mind. He mentioned several other trainers by name when describing a concept he liked. He is also quite courteous to the people in the ring with him. I never heard him take a cheap shot at anyone, even when there were comical disconnects between what he was saying and what the students were doing.


He is a bit of a free thinker -- talking about recently taking up meditation, how he practices sitting in ice water for long periods of time, applying Wayne Dyer's self-help thinking to horse training. Something seems to be working for him -- for an old guy, it was astonishing how he could go jogging around the arena and not sound out of breath with that microphone right in front of his mouth. He also taught almost non stop from 8:30 in the morning to about six PM without a meal.


He told a couple of particularly astonishing stories involving feral horses (if I remember right, at least one of them was a New Zealand Kaimanawa). Anyway, one of the horses had been under saddle for years and would be fine most of the time and then bolt unpredictably. During the session with Schiller the horse laid down in the arena and fell sound asleep. That was two years ago and the owner reports the horse has never bolted again. I would certainly pay to learn how to do that!


After the clinic I attended several of Schiller's Expo sessions. Even when he had the vast audience in the coliseum he allotted most of the time to lecture and very little to the horse he had brought in for demonstration. That was my only real criticism, that and the fact that no matter what the subject was of a particular session, he repeated a number of jokes and stories from all the other sessions, related or not.


I have no comment on his overall training program because I don't know enough about it. As Silver Maple says, start at the beginning. I think that's good advice regarding any of these trainers.


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