Unbridled and Legendary: Equine Stories

She fell off the horse at six years old, and her mother gave her a choice: go in the house and cry or get back on.  Muffy Knox chose to get back on, and she never stopped.  In this conversation with Dr. Chad Hewlett, Muffy traces eight decades of life in the saddle, from a barefoot childhood on a Calgary-area farm in the 1940s to becoming one of Alberta's most respected equine educators, coac...

What does it actually take to build something that lasts nearly 50 years and then hand it off to the next generation without losing a single step?  Lyle Kurtz didn't set out to become one of the most quietly influential figures in Canadian rodeo history.  He was a Saskatchewan ranch kid who came to Alberta for the oil and gas industry, spotted an opportunity, and launched CVS Controls with hi...

Everything happens for a reason, especially when horses are involved.  In this episode, Chad Hewlett sits down with Taylor Manning to trace her journey from growing up in Edson, Alberta, surrounded by barrel racing, to becoming a young CFR competitor with a deep respect for training, pressure, and perseverance.  Taylor reflects on the horses that shaped her, including Silver, Tivio, Matlock, and B...

Most people think an overnight success is built overnight.  Dustin and Marla Gonnet know better…they built theirs on blizzard-blocked mountain passes, two blown transmissions, a baby born while Dad was at the cutting pen, and a barn raised from an empty quarter section with borrowed money and family hands.  Dr. Chad Hewlett sits down with his closest friends in the industry, Canada's most acc...

What separates the average from the legendary when talent is the same?  Dr. Chad Hewlett shares a powerful early career story about how humility, mentorship, and relentless repetition shaped his journey as a young veterinarian.  Working in Oklahoma under the guidance of farrier legend Mark Milster, Chad witnessed firsthand the discipline that true mastery requires.  Night after night, Milster forg...

The moment the ground disappears beneath you is the moment you find out what you're actually made of.  Dr. Chad Hewlett strips away the polished version of success and tells the story that built him: the February morning in 2004 when he was fired, left without a visa, without a practice, without a phone number, and with a pregnant wife and $15,000 borrowed from friends.  What followed was not...

Before the accident, Brian Coleman was already a legend.  Nine world titles.  Forty years behind the lines.  A client roster that reads like a Forbes list.  But on an ordinary spring morning in 2022, a runaway pair of draft horses put him in a ditch with a broken neck, three shattered vertebrae, a collapsed lung, and eight weeks until the Calgary Stampede.  What happened next is the part nobody ou...

In the equine world, there's no faking it. A horse knows. They know if you've put in the work. They know if your mind is somewhere else. They know if you're operating at the level you said you were. I'm Dr. Chad Hewlett, founder of Energy Equine Veterinary Services. I've spent my career at the edge of equine performance — and what I've learned is this: the discipline...

The barn has always been a classroom…and if you've spent enough time in it, you already know that.  Dr. Chad Hewlett, founder of Energy Equine Veterinary Services and one of Canada's foremost performance horse veterinarians, opens not with a mission statement, but with a provocation: the horse world doesn't just teach horsemanship…it forges people.  In this debut episode, Dr. Hewlet...