November 2009 - jweite

Name: Joe Weitekamp

Location: Las Vegas, NV

What’s your typical day like?
I get up about 4:30 every morning, shower, coffee and feed the horses. Then I take my daughter to school at 6:30, eat breakfast and help my wife get my son ready for school. I walk my son to school about 8:45 and then my work day starts. I usually have about 5 or 6 horses in training at any one time and try to work 4 horses every day between 9:00 and 3:30. My daughter rides the bus home with a friend and they clean stalls. I walk over to my son’s school at 3:30 and bring him home. 4:00 to 5:00 is homework time and then I get dinner ready for me and the kids; sometimes after dinner I have time to work another horse but usually I am done for the day. My wife will get home around 10:30 in the evening. She works full time as a Community Manager, which means night meetings a couple of times a week, along with taking a class which is required for her work. And as if that wasn’t enough of a load, she is going to night school to change careers.

How did you first find horses or did they find you?
When I was about 6, my family moved from town out into the country on 10 acres. My mom got a horse that we started riding. When I was fourteen I bought my first horse, an unbroken four year old that I broke and trained myself with a little help from my dad. I had no experience breaking and training a horse and no experienced help but she turned out alright. I on the other hand got bucked off more times in that process than I have over the entire rest of my life. I ended up trading her to my friend’s dad for my first car. He used her as a hunting horse for about 10 years after that.

If you could change one thing within the horse industry, what would that be?
There are 2 things and I can’t choose one over the other. The first is back yard breeders. There are too many people out there that don’t know what they are doing breeding horses so they can sell the babies or breeding because they just want a cute little foal. They are saturating market with undesirable horses, which is why the auctions are so full, which in turn keeps the Kill Buyers in business.

The other is the belief that mustangs are just wild animals and cannot be trained and turned into viable equine partners. It has been my experience as a horse trainer that mustangs are actually easier to train than domestic horses. The key is building the bond at the beginning. Mustangs are awesome horses and that is why I have gotten involved with the Mustang Heritage Foundation as a trainer for the Extreme Mustang Makeover. There is no other horse show in the world that I know of, that shows what can be accomplished in just 90 to 100 days like the Extreme Mustang Makeover. This competition has done more for the mustang than anything else.

Other than horses, what else do you enjoy doing for fun?
The top of the list has to be spending time with my wife on the weekends as her schedule right now is so crazy. I also enjoy hunting, fishing, camping, golf, racing go carts and cars and visiting family and friends.

Is there a special significance to your avatar?
My avatar is a picture of me with my first mustang, Bella. I trained her for the Extreme Mustang Makeover competition in Sacramento. She was awesome and will always hold a special place in my heart. When you build a bond with a mustang you don’t just get them to bond with you. You bond with them also. With a mustang you get back everything that you put into them. She will always rank at the top of all of the horses that I have had the pleasure of riding.

Anything else that we should know about you?
I used to be in construction and had my own business as a general contractor for about 10 years. When the economy got the better of me, I closed the company and went back to training horses. I can’t figure but why I ever stopped training. I enjoy it so much. There was a time when the company was doing very well and we were “keeping up with the Joneses,” but our happiest times were when we first got married and now when we had “nothing” but our horses and family. I feel lucky that I can do what I love and make a living at it. Most people can’t say that.

Thanks for asking me to do this. It kind of makes you think about why we do the things that we do. Sometimes we just cruise through life and don’t stop and look back or wonder why. It has been a pleasure.