Five stand-out pros set the bar high for the reining industry, from youth riders to the highest-level open competitors.
By Jennifer Paulson
Being an NRHA Professional holds you to a high standard in your horsemanship, your showmanship, your customer relations, and your business management. Annually, NRHA recognizes various Professionals of the Year who exemplify excellence in all that they do, in and out of the arena. The pool of candidates comes from the general membership—your customers. The final selections are made by your peers—anyone with an NRHA Professional membership in good standing had the opportunity to vote online for who was most deserving of these distinctions. Then the NRHA Professionals Committee validates the selections before they’re shared with the world.
2023 Non Pro Coach of the Year
Name: Dan Huss
Hometown: Scottsdale, Arizona
What It Means: “It’s a big honor to be recognized,” Huss shares. “It just makes you feel good to be nominated and then voted for by people you usually compete with. It’s a great show of appreciation for my time and effort. I’m fortunate to have been in a teaching environment for many years, as a teacher at University of Findlay for 19 years. I had to teach all different levels of riders there with all different backgrounds. My main goal with my non pros it to teach them to do their job really well by giving the horse a correct, positive signal. If you do that on every maneuver, the outcome takes care of itself.”
Advice to Pros: “Patience and customer service are very important with our non pros,” he says. “Make it an enjoyable environment for your non pros to come and learn. I try to make it as easy as possible for them. Our youth riders do everything, but we take care of everything for our non pros. They come and ride, and we do the rest. To be a successful non pro coach, you also need to be able to break down every maneuver into steps that are easily understood by your customer. Once they accomplish step 1, they start to build confidence with each next step. Finally, I like to tell my customers it’s never about memorization. It’s about visualization. Visualize that perfect pattern for that horse, including the signals.”
