Horse Trainers Tame Wild Horses at Second Annual Colt Challenge - WSET.com - ABC13

Chatham, VA-- Have you ever heard of the Dog Whisperer? He's able to turn the worst dogs into lovable best friends, and he does it all in a short amount of time. Well, that's what folks were doing on Saturday in Chatham, but with horses. It all happened at the Second Annual Colt Challenge.

The event took place at the newly completed Olde Dominion Agricultural Complex.The audience filled the stands to see how a wild horse can be tamed in just three hours.

"It's actually, it's almost like magic," said event coordinator David Tuggle.

The challenge was comprised of three hours, three trainers, and three horses that aren't used to being bossed around.

"I'm just in awe, I come, I watch and I'm like, I would love to have the passion and the time to be that level of an equestrian,"said owner of Moxie Equestrian Milton Mann.

As you can imagine, the job is not that easy.

"Horses would rather be out in the grass eating, you know, they don't want to come play our silly little games," said contestant Brock Griffeth.

"Starting young horses is not for everybody," said head judge, Randy Abernathy.

The contestants say it's all about letting the horse know they are safe with their trainer.

"We let them know that it's in their best interest if they come and be with us, then life is good," said Griffeth. "We're not going to hurt them, we're not going to do anything harsh to them. Most of the time once they figure that out, they really enjoy it and they like it, and they take to the process really well."

This event was put on by the South Eastern Farriers and Horse owners Association. They saID this event is not just fun for the family but horse owners can learn some great tips on how to properly train their horses.

"You get to learn all this great knowledge from all these trainers that you would pay bigger bucks to go somewhere else and learn this information," said attendee Karen Johnston.

"That's what these types of events are about," said Griffeth. "It's sharing horsemanship and making the world a better place for horses. So the more educated people are the better."

The event coordinators say they wanted to use the competition to show people that there are some very talented horse trainers in the area.