Jack Dolbeare grew up in Colorado with a passion for horses. Although he began in English riding, Jack was drawn to the western tradition of the vaquero style, in which the rider takes their time to train a horse based on trust and mutual respect; the real harmony between horse and human.

Since he was privileged to attend his first clinic with Buck Brannaman, one of the world’s leading practitioners of handling horses with classical California vaquero skills, Jack has diligently committed to work his own American Quarter Horse, Stanley, as well as his client horses through this intentional groundwork and training.

Attending clinics in colt starting, cow working and ranch roping, Jack has evolved his horsemanship and stockmanship, emboldening his commitment to the intrinsic value of all species. In the act of roping a cow, he’s been taught, that there are three heartbeats at work together–human, horse, cow–and that responsibility has given him his “land ethic.” As described by naturalist Aldo Leopold, our “community” includes not only humans, but all of the other parts of the Earth, including the soils, waters, plants, and animals – “the land.”

It is this connection to the land and animals that informs all of his work including training horses, roping cattle, farming with his family at Longshot Farm in Longmont, CO and working at the Slash J Slash Ranch in Granby, CO. This sensitivity has also helped him become a 2023 Rocky Mountain Ranch Roping and Stock Horse Association Novice Champion, as well as helping his team win the state 2023 FFA Horse Evaluation Career Development Event (CDE) and place sixth in the country at the national competition in Indianapolis, IN.

Jack is known to those who love him as a gentle, patient man, and this is what he brings to his horsemanship every day.