I am your coach… and I am driven to help you succeed.
My Name is Samantha (Sam) Winslow – Holmes.
I was driven to get to the bottom of WHY as barrel racers we are crippling our horses at an alarming rate and struggling to shut off the clock on the best bred horses in the equine industry… and so my journey began – horse poor and on a mission to get to the bottom of it!
I have loved horses as long as I can remember. We had a pony as kids and then went years without a horse on the property, but that never dampened my love.
Being like the average horse crazy enthusiast, I would sell my soul for a horse in a heartbeat. I spent a lot of my time as a kid aligning myself with people who knew more than me about horses or had horses. I have always been fascinated with everything about them.
I grew up in Northern Ontario Canada. It is fairly isolated and surrounded by trees, mountains and lakes. Not exactly horse country.
My family didn’t have a lot of money so I rode friends and family’s horses mostly over the years. We did have a pony Rusty when we were little. He was a typical shetland that would let us ride for a bit and then lay down when he was done. Some of my cousins and friends had horses and I used every opportunity I could to be with them. No one in our family did anything beyond basic riding and some gymkhanas. We had a few local fairs per year that had open horse shows that I would watch with awe.
When I was in Highschool I saved up my babysitting money and took some basic riding lessons with a neighbor Sheila Platnick. Sheila was a regular on the horse show circuit and showed arabs and quarter horses. She had a lot of patience and taught a lot of local kids horsemanship over the years. I remember distinctly how much my family made fun of me – why would I waste my money on that, I already knew how to ride a horse – but to me there was more – how could you ask a horse to move with a draped rein and them not run away with you? How could you get them to extend their legs at a trot with only your legs?
I have also loved rodeo and barrel racing since I can remember. I remember watching Mesquite Championship Rodeo every Sunday night on the big pillow on our living room floor.
I have met a lot of great people and over the years and have accumulated knowledge from any and everyone I can. I have worked at a lot of jobs over the years including being an accounting technician, an auction mart clerk, T1 Tax return specialist, managed a consulting division in a bookkeeping firm, I was the provincial rodeo secretary and founded my own company Intervaltiming.com.
I haven’t always been able to own a horse but have always kept involved through friends and acquaintances in the industry.
(This is how I roll when a friend needs a picture of a horse and their kids need something to do when that is happening.
My Intervaltiming.com & Copper Top Live businesses have given me a platform to observe and collect data on performance horses all over the US and Canada.
I have caught intervals and watched live over 500,000 barrel racing runs since starting the business. If you have ever sat and watched a run happen and the clock go at the same time, it is an eye opener on what the eye perceives is fast and what the clock says, and they can be two entirely different things.
Another thing I found was that people were rarely taking into account how their horse was built to work and making adjustments around that.
When I was young, I was in love with gymnastics. If you have ever been involved in the sport, it has a lot of the same needs as a good barrel run. Timing, muscle memory, physics, form, breakneck speeds and adrenaline are all the same, as well as the importance of balance, kinetics, physics and lines. A lot of knowledge of timing and balance started here.
I am blessed with an analytical mind and thought process without judgement. I see things move and they are balanced and have symmetry or they aren’t and my eye is looking for the balance point and where there can be improvement.
Execution should be the only variable you have left after working with me and my program, because the Who, What, Where, When, How and Why are all answered in detail in the courses.
I am an active member of the Canadian National Coaching Certification Program, an internationally recognized certification with multiple disciplines. I am focusing on Equestrian and Gymnastics, I am working towards my Olympic Level Certifications.
There are so many “opinions” in all sectors of the horse industry, without back up or follow through, or proof and I have always found it frustrating.
I started out as a “parrot” and feel like a lot of people have done and continue to do the same. We mimic what we see, without applying a proper analytical assessment to it. There are a lot of clinicians who talk without teaching. I see a lot of top riders and trainers “helping” others, but they don’t know why they are doing what they are doing.
These opinions (aka clinics) often cost people top dollar with no guarantee, no evidence, no proper education and at the end of the day, these people have no accountability for a lack of results. I will present to you a methodology and process with a results guarantee. If you can open your thoughts and eyes to the physics and kinetics of both your horse (and all horses) and yourself, apply them to the performance horse world, the results will be the proof.
Join me as I share my legacy and research on how horses skeleton decides HOW they are built to move and learn to work with that for a better relationship with your horse and yourself in the performance and arena and in general.