Meet Our Ribbon Wand Ambassadors
TJ Clibborn, horse trainer and owner of A True Partnership
TJ Clibborn was our very first Ribbon Wand Ambassador. He specializes in starting and training colts for competitions, including for Blue Chip Farm LLC in Wallkill, New York. He has also finaled in every Mustang Challenge that he’s competed in and has numerous Reserve Champion and Champion wins under his belt in a variety of competitions. In 2019, he’ll be judging Colt Starting at the Everything Equine Expo in North Carolina.
TJ believes the foundation of horse training is trust, which is one reason he’s such a fan of The Ribbon Wand. He finds with its soft touch and how “the ribbons die the minute they touch the horse,” it’s an ideal tool to help the horse calm quickly. This ability to regain calm is essential in building the trust that TJ emphasizes in the overall training process.
He also uses The Ribbon Wand to desensitize horses to movement, sound, and touch. He says The Ribbon Wand is “one of the greatest tools I have found to desensitize a horse.”
To learn more about TJ Clibborn, visit his Facebook page.
Dan Grunewald, horse trainer and judge
To learn more about Dan, visit his website at DanGrunewald.com or his Facebook page.
Dan Grunewald is known in the horse show world for his expertise and talent as an exhibitor, clinician, and judge. He’s a four-time top ten finisher in the Extreme Mustang Challenge. Dan holds ABRA, IBHA, POA, ARHA, WSHC, and other judge cards. Over the years, he’s trained a number of local, state, national and world champion horses, and now he’s added The Ribbon Wand to his list of most loved horse-training tools.
Dan recommends The Ribbon Wand for both experienced horse owners and trainers and those who are just starting out with their first horse. Dan says, “The Ribbon Wand is so safe to use that anyone can pick it up and begin working with it and their horse immediately.”
For more advanced users, Dan appreciates the versatility of The Ribbon Wand. “It can be used on virtually every part of the animal’s body from desensitizing them to the feel of something around their back and girth, to teaching them to lift their feet by wrapping it around their fetlock. It is truly one of the safest and easiest to use tools I’ve found.”
Mary Elena Moran, mounted police officer and Harmony Horsemanship Level 3 instructor
Mary Elena Moran discovered The Ribbon Wand after watching fellow Ambassador TJ Clibborn use the tool on her Warmblood yearling. She ordered her own and quickly became one of The Ribbon Wand’s most avid supporters.
Mary Elena is an instructor and clinician for East Coast Mounted Patrol Association and Equine Groundwork Solutions LLC. She rehabilitates and retrains rescued horses to be police horses, where they serve as a testament to the transformation that is possible with care and proper training for these previously neglected animals. Mary Elena’s unique training practices are built on a competent dressage foundation using a combination of natural horsemanship and confidence building with obstacle training. She uses this combination to prepare horses for any discipline. She personally competes in jumping, dressage, side saddle, obstacle training, and cowboy mounted shooting.
Mary Elena received first place in the Expert Equitation Rider class at the 2018 North American Police Equestrian Championships. Her kill-pen-rescued mare, Panda, was nominated as the 2018 Arabian Cowboy Mounted Shooting horse of the year. She has also successfully competed in the 2019 Horse World Expo’s “Rescued to Stardom” trainer’s challenge.
Mary Elena states, “I have been able to really breakthrough barriers of PTSD, anxiety, and fear with my rescued horses by using The Ribbon Wand from Raven’s Equine Products. With this tool, I am able to methodically present noise, sound, and visual sensory to the horse which then provides me valuable feedback by identifying potential fear triggers and sensory sensitivities. I then make a training plan to help the horse overcome these roadblocks by having short positive sessions addressing the ‘sensitivity.’ I believe this tool is a must-have for mounted police training and retraining rescues as it has been very valuable in facilitating a safety-minded, trust-building, progressive training program where my rescues make the ultimate transformation to being police horses.”
Find Mary Elena Moran at Equine Groundwork Solutions' website or Facebook page.