Chet Martin
Reined cow horse and reining trainer, Chet Martin grew up in the saddle on the family ranch.
Martin’s dad got him his first pony when he was 5 and they always went to horse sales and bought any Quarter Horse that was in foal. Together, they would retrain the broodmares and start the foals when they were old enough and sell them. Martin said his training was a “kind of baptism by fire”.
At around age 10, Martin went to a colt starting clinic where he improved his technique. Martin always dreamed of showing horses, but didn’t really get the chance to growing up in a conservative Mennonite family.
When he was 12 years old, a neighbor sent him a horse to train and ever since then he’s always had horses in work.
Later Martin worked in construction Chet Martin – Arthur, Ontario during the day and rode horses at night. In the winter, he had to do all his training outside wearing a head lamp due to the short days.
He then worked for Loris Epis, a reining horse trainer that introduced him to the horse show world. Martin spent time with Matt Hudson, Gabe Reynolds and Cayley Wilson from BC Canada who still helps Martin with anything he might be working through with a horse.
With only 5 years of showing some of Martin’s accomplishments in the show pen include, reserve at the Performance Quebec Futurity show in Canada and 3rd at the Southwest Reined Cow Horse Association Pre-Futurity. He won a few Futurities in Ontario and a couple Derbies. He also won the level one futurity in Syracuse, New York which was a highlight.
“The wins themselves are probably not as exciting as all the people you get to meet and all the support that you get… anytime you get a chance to win something or do well at an event. There’s just so many people that you find… all the people that have been just kind of silently cheering for you in the background that you didn’t even know existed and all the sudden they are just like “hey, I’ve been watching you and I’m really happy you were able to win this or do well here or there,” and that’s probably what means the most to me as far as success in the show pen goes.”
Why Chet Uses CHTO: Martin said the videos help keep him tuned up and give him easy access to great information.“I think especially for someone like myself who’s out in the middle of nowhere and we kind of don’t have a lot of cow horse and cutting trainers right close by where you can have another set of experienced eyes watching you all the time, I think training videos like CHTO’s are super helpful as long as you are disciplined and consistent with watching them.”
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