Dustin, Shannon & Brooklynn Grams
Dustin Grams has experience showing and training in the cutting and reined cow horse disciplines. For the past 3-4 years, he has focused on the cow horse side of the business after a local cow horse club got started and created a lot of interest in the sport.
Grams has been training horses for 34 years. In his 20s, he started 2 year olds and got his first introduction to cutting and cow horses. A lot of horses he started ended up at the Bar H.
Grams began showing in the cutting pen about 10 years ago. He and his family have shown throughout Canada and the United States. Grams is proud to say his wife, Shannon, qualified for the NRCHA World Show the past few years.
The last few years Grams has had to slow down training horses due to some heart issues but is now back at it. When Grams was sick, Shannon was able to ride the aged event horses and keep them going. Dustin said he is so thankful for her stepping up and carrying on.
Grams most memorable moment in the sport was spending four days with Todd Bergen in Arizona. He said he simply called Bergen up and was soon on a plane to Arizona. John Slack was there and Corey Cushing was working for Slack and Andrea Fappani was working for Bergen. Grams said it was a great few days learning from the best. He said Bergen really took his time explaining things to Grams and the experience was a career-changing few days.
Why Dustin uses CHTO: “I’ve always been a real student. One of the things that really kept me going early in my career, when I wasn’t very good, was having a big urge to learn how to do things and get better ways to do things…When CHTO came out, it was like why didn’t someone do this 10 years earlier? You get to see all the good guys and I really enjoy Michael Cooper, his videos are really good. I have talked to some of these guys on the phone and in person and it’s a very good thing for a trainer it just gives you a chance, you got more options when you see what everyone else is trying to do…You get more ideas you can try and see what works for you.”