Complaint Review: ZAAL RANCH - Texas

Forgot to mention NOT CONVICTED ... but that would be expected from someone that can’t be honest about telling their clients "oh we don’t feed them it gets better results”. Please continue your attempt to discredit me to take the heat off of your training techniques...

 If you’re going to state facts you really should get it right.. The horse with payment in full was dropped off on June 25th ... a Saturday... I had conversations with you about training my colt long before this. You informed us vet was coming on Thursday June 30th we asked you have a coggins pulled and have teeth checked His coggins and extraction of "1” wolf tooth was done.. so it wasn’t July

I’m not nor ever been an angry person so whom ever you’re getting your information from has lied to you. My life is great. I own my home paid in full 3500sq feet it’s beautiful. I have ZERO debt. I have trained and raced the rankest thoroughbreds at the track. I have trained many riding horses and you know what none were starved like the training protocol at ZAAL RANCH. None were trained to be food motivated. Their owners didn’t have to carry a carrot on a stick to get them to perform. Nor did I train them to be a circus pony. Or return them 100’s of pounds underweight. I should of listened to my mother when we visited after he was there 1 week when she said why are all the horses here so thin. My mom took those pics. My colt was handled since birth. Never been fearful of him. He’s never been aggressive. There isn’t a bad mean bone in his body. This is the first of my own I didn’t break. You knew exactly in conversations that I was looking to have you do, just place a handle on him with an O Ring because my work schedule kept me from breaking him. My colt didn’t deserve what you did to him. You informed me Vet was coming and I asked you to have coggins pulled. Vet said he had "1” just 1 wolf tooth so we agreed to have it pulled. So don’t be so dramatic that his teeth were terrible he’s 3. After we got him back to his real weight he was sent to another trainer and was finished correctly. Oh and he never missed a meal. I stand behind my colts condition when I picked him up after 60 days of no feed. You should use this as your LOGO. ZAAL RANCH starves to train It’s got ^ a nice ring to it.

 Since you can’t be honest that you starved my colt to train him I’m not surprised you would dig into "public records” yes they are public ... I applaud your effort to discredit me. Since you won’t own up to what you did to my colt. First you didn’t dig deep enough the manager was arrested first for Embezzlement he attempted to take his young employees down with him. I had "brake shoes” in the bed of my truck when police came to arrest manager that I didn’t pay for, comical that made me a felon. Yes I wrote a few bad checks I wasn’t good with balancing out my checking account. Being young and dumb at the time it got me into trouble. But it was all paid "Water under the bridge”. I’m not hiding from the law and I never have but also I’m not surprised you would throw that in there

Daniel Richard Spitzner contacted me on June 25, 2017 by text regarding breaking and riding his year old stallion.  We arranged for him to bring me this horse in July 2017.  I started working with this horse doing nothing but ground work. I realized the first day, that he was a horse that had no handling, or manners taught to him by his owner.  He was immature, spoiled and was displaying aggressive stallion behavior. Daniel Richard Spitzner however failed to tell me that he had just a few months earlier, had bred this stallion to one of his mares. This is a very important fact to reveal to someone before they start handling a stallion. In Daniel Richard Spitzners complaint he claimed to be a horse trainer himself, but had decided to use someone else to train his horse.  This is because he was afraid of this horse and was lacking the skills or courage to do it himself.  After this horse arrived, it was determined that he needed his dental work done immediately.  I texted the owner and asked had his teeth been floated.  They had not and I recommended that be done. as this will cause a horse to lose weight as well as other issues that can be caused by lack of dental maintenance.  This was the end of July.  When the horse arrived at our facility, he was pasture fat and very unfit.  A result of no physical activity and being on a pasture  grass all Spring and Summer eating hay and being fed grain additionally.  When a horse begins a training program it is common for them to lose weight, tone up and have physical body changes.  

I communicated with the owner regularly during the horse's time here.  I have attached some of the text messages of our conversations.  Dan stated he liked the videos we made of his horse.  That he was pleased with his training and his progress.  I have an open door policy here at our ranch. Clients are welcome anytime they feel like dropping by to see their horse.  Daniel Richard Spitzner came by twice to see his horse while he was in training. Both times, he refused to ride him.  We showed him his horse both without a saddle and undersaddle being ridden.  We had made major progess with this stallion in a short time.  He was riding extremely well, was becoming more mannerly and well behaved.  I mentioned to the owner several times in text messages that his horse had some stallion behavior such as being easily distracted, reacting to mares (because he had just been breeding a couple of months before), I also, told the owner that this horse was very study and that it would help him to be gelding. At no time, did the owner inform me that this stallion had indeed live covered a mare. By not disclosing that information to me - he put me and my staff in danger.  That is simply something that anyone handling a young stallion needs to know to be safe.  During this time, we were also breeding some of our stallions to mares here at the ranch.  This stud was very aware of this and started stressing and becoming increasingly aggressive.  He was pacing alot, working himself up into a full body sweat. Which with his bad teeth, and being in training contributed to a small amount of weight loss.  Daniel Richard stated he lost 400 pounds, which would have been almost half of this entire body weight. And as you can see from the photos he posted was simply a gross over exaggeration.

The owners have put this horse up for sale and are using one of the photos of the horse while he was here in training at our ranch. He claims the horse had scars, marks etc. This is a total lie, and why did he not take photos of the scars and marks of abuse? There are no pics of those. Why did he not simply move his horse if he believed he was being starved and beaten?  This is a perfect example of a backyard horseman whos is way over their head with a horse they cannot handle. Their ignorance regarding training and colt developing is evident.  He wanted a bit in this colts mouth very early on, so that he may have more control.  I do not recommend putting a bit in a young horses mouth after only a few rides.

I have been told many times now that Daniel Richard Spitzner is a nut case.  And has a reputation for having a bad temper and a filthy mouth. I did some research on my own about this individual and found out that he is a convicted felon.  He has a criminal record for hot checks, embezzlement, and theft by unlawful taking.  I requested his arrest records from McAlester Police Department and confirmed this.  He was fired and convicted for theft from O'Reillly Auto Parts.  He does not use his full name on Facebook either, as I suspect he is hiding from law enforcement.   I now realize that I was dealing with a very uncredible person as well as a criminal.  We at Zaal Ranch have an excellent reputation for training horses.  We have been in business over twenty years.  We have many positive reviews on our Facebook page from happy clients.  We are known for our wholestic approach to horse training with non agressive methods and handling. We think that we returned a well trained, rideable horse back to the owner and stand by our expertise and treatment of this horse. The videos and photographs prove this.