As a young man growing up in Texas, Lance Valdespino remembers going to rodeos with his family for entertainment.  He attended Southwest Texas State University and the University of Texas at Austin.  Upon graduation, he went back to the way of life he still loves, training horses for some of the major farms and ranches in both the eastern and western United States.

Fourteen years ago, he purchased property in the Rio Verde foothills near Scottsdale, Arizona, where he operates Lance Valdespino Performance Training Center.

"I start colts and work with horses that have issues," he says.  Choosing not to specialize in any one breed, Valdespino has trained quarter horses, Arabians, thoroughbreds, Morgans, Saddlebreds, warmbloods and others.  In recent years, however, he has developed a special talent for starting young reining and cutting prospects.  Many of his clients are other trainers who want their colts to get off to a good start while they are traveling on the show circuit.   At Lance's facility, they receive consistent daily work with one of the most skilled and knowledgeable horsemen in the industry.

Lance was featured in the June 2007 issue of Western Horseman in an article entitled "Beyond the Round-pen." 

"The first 90 days of a horse's training are the most important," he says.  "The premise of my program is instilling confidence in youngsters, and my philosophy is 'slower is faster.'  The slower you go during the first 90 days of training, the easier your horse will handle pressure later on."