Meet Dan
Despite growing up in the remote town of McCarthy Alaska Dan always dreamed about being a cowboy. In an attempt to offer their son the opportunity to gain horse experience, they arranged for Dan to borrow the neighbors’ new pack horse over the summer. The horse turned out to be a newly retired bronc named Judgeeto, a legend in Alaska rodeo bucking horses. A young Dan was bucked off repeatedly but eventually gentled the gelding enough for him to ride, and eventually for his little brother to ride too. Maybe his parents hoped that Judgeeto could curb their sons desire to cowboy. It didn’t.
At the ripe age of 15 Dan left his small community and family to learn to rope and ride in California…and he has never looked back. Since then, he has packed in the wilderness of the Wrangell Mountains where he wrangled the old school way; horses hobbled with bells and turned out to free range overnight, only to be gathered again before morning light. He then went on to find cowboy jobs all over Montana, Idaho, Nebraska, Texas, and Oregon where he discovered his true passion of tending cattle horseback. His favorites of which were remote cowcamp jobs. He also spent a couple of years working for impressive reining barns where he primarily rode colts and discovered his talent with young horses.
Nowadays, Dan enjoys a quiet life encompassing his two passions: cows and colts. He still enjoys riding a buck and welcomes clients with problem horses to bring them to him as he loves turning a fearful client-horse relationship into a team.
Meet Tylor
Growing up in the concrete jungles in Oregon and Arizona, Tylor never got the opportunity to ride horses in her younger years. As an adolescent her dreams included pursuing a degree in engineering and becoming successful in the aviation industry. Then during her early college years she was offered a spontaneous summer time opportunity to fly to Alaska and stay with distant relatives that had horses. She rode a horse for the first time at 20 years old and when summer ended, she opted to stay in Alaska and have horses in her life forevermore.
Continuing to live in Alaska she graduated with her mechanical engineering degree and went on to work in the remote oilfields of Alaska for several years. She immersed herself in all horse studies that could be learned remotely, primarily through books and videos. She particularly enjoyed (and still does) studying equine nutrition and behavior/brain science. Eventually after meeting Dan and founding RES, Tylor found that she could put a soft feel on a variety of horses and began to develop her own style of training.
Moving to a Montanan ranch with Dan has allowed her to learn cattle work. Tylor now runs the day to day operations of the business and continues to expand and improve on her horsemanship and knowledge. She loves to rope and cut and will continue to develop her skills to make great horses.
Dan and Tylor hold a calf for branding, July of 2021
The Rowlands
We met in Alaska on a mutual friends ranch. Our first date was a long, rainy horseback ride on Lazy Mountain back to a secret waterfall. From that day on, we were inseparable and knew that we had met the person we had been looking for. Shortly thereafter, we founded Rowland Equine Services in Palmer, Alaska and began serving the public by starting colts and offering tune-ups. Acknowledging our desire for more opportunity, we packed our entire lives into our 3-horse trailer and headed to Montana to begin the next chapter of our lives. We are now married and continue to live the life of our dreams.
As business partners, we believe that we are able to offer a unique experience to horses that come to us for training since we have two different people that ride with the same philosophy. This means that we apply the same principles and timing but with slightly different cues. A horse then learns to think a little more independently and to interpret cues from all kinds of people. We find that by both riding training horses, we are able to find little holes the other one may have left behind. Dan really enjoys colt starting whereas Tylor loves finish work. We also conduct “first rides” together to minimize insecurity of colts and to encourage positive experiences.
We are always available and happy to answer questions. The best way to contact us is to utilize the Contact Us link at the top of the page.
We just want to say thank you to all of our clients and friends, Rowland Equine Services has blossomed into something that we are both truly proud to operate and we couldn’t do that without of all you.