OklahomaHorses Magazine March 2023

10 OklahomaHorses • March / April 2023 “I truly poured everything into being an assistant trainer, and it was tough,” she said. “I knew I had something good, and the thought of doing anything else wasn’t appealing to me.” That went on for two years until Allen decided to strike out on her own. That was in 2019, when Rafter-O Performance Horses was officially born. “We got really busy really fast,” Allen explained. “Then COVID hit. I was still busy, but I was getting married soon, and that meant moving to Stigler. Things slowed down once I moved, mostly because I didn’t know anybody there.” Taking jobs outside the arena simply to make ends meet didn’t mean Allen was out of the saddle, however. Her hours were just drastically different. “Early last year, I was teaching full time and riding six outside horses,” Allen said. “I would get home from school around 4 p.m. and ride until 10 or 11 at night under a few lights I had set up.” Repurposed chicken coops were Allen’s makeshift horse stalls during what can only be described as a transition period. Before moving to Stigler, her one concern was the remote location because she didn’t think it would bring enough horses to support a full-time operation. “I started to realize that maybe I was wrong,” she said. In May, she and her husband, Kyle, built their first 10-stall barn. Before it was even up, the stalls were all spoken for. They put up another barn a few months later, with 16 stalls. Both barns are consistently full, which allowed Allen to hire her first employee. “We got way busier than we were ready for, and that’s how we ended up building two barns in the first year,” she said. “I don’t think my family could see how this could be successful. I had to prove to everyone that it could be done. I don’t really care that I’ll never get rich doing this. I love training, and I’m so thankful that I get to do it.” Kaleidoscope of Philosophies During some of Allen’s most formative years as an equestrian, she was learning dressage and jumping. Later, when she started to work for Rohwedder, Allen built a foundation in the reining arena that she leans into today. “I really do think the techniques I learned from dressage can be great for any horse,” she said. “It’s just about teaching them to use their bodies, stay soft in the face, pick up their shoulders, move off leg pressure — all those good basics that every horse needs to know. Especially when you’re looking for longevity, they need those fundamentals for any discipline.” When Allen first started to train full time out of Stigler, she was getting the type of horse that would scrape her off on the fence or come at her with teeth bared across the round pen. In short, such horses made it hard to enjoy her job, but she persevered through it. “Last summer, I had a tough crowd of horses, any issue you could deal with was there,” she said. “As a trainer, I have to adjust myself and my training technique for each horse. That lot of horses made sure of that.” Allen hoped for safer mounts to come her way. Then, investors were knocking on her door so she could buy her own prospects. “Sometimes when riding client horses, I don’t get to keep them long enough to really showcase what a horse can do,” she explained. “Having my own investment horses meant I could spend the time I needed to make them into something really nice and ultimately get my name out there.” Every horse, much like every person, that Allen interacts with through her profession teaches her something new. That’s how she has formulated her training techniques and how she anticipates that they will continue to evolve. “I try to keep an open mind,” Allen said about setting goals for Rafter-O. “A year ago, I would have never imagined having the caliber of horses that we do now. It’s what I wanted but didn’t see happening.” A CLIENT’S PERSPECTIVE “I was looking for a trainer that I could take my two-year-old colt to, and I wanted someone who was close so I could check in on him. Olivia Allen kept him about 90 days, and now my daughter can ride him bareback, he neck-reins, executes flying-lead changes, he’s just extremely broke. I really like it that Olivia has very soft hands, and she’s knowledgeable about what she’s doing. She makes sure everyone is getting what they pay for by riding the horses consistently and consecutively. I really appreciate the good handle she put on our horse. It’s one thing to get horses back and they ride around nicely, but it’s another when they’re really soft and you can tell they haven’t been yanked on. She just puts a good handle on them.” — Letta Guyer Most of Olivia Allen’s training experience is centered around the fundamentals of reining. Photo courtesy of Olivia Allen.