They call him America’s most trusted horseman and it’s a title John Lyons doesn’t take lightly.

After 27 years in a profession he pioneered, the Parachute, Colo., trainer of horses and their riders, is still spending every day trying to get better.

“No one knows the absolute best way to train a horse,” Lyons said. “The very best trained horse in the world is probably working at only 25 percent of his potential. I have to keep looking for a better way. I have to keep learning.

“It’s a continuing, never-ending quest. If I had four lifetimes and all I did was train horses, I’d still never know it all but I’d be trying.”

Lyons couldn’t begin to tell you how many horses he’s worked with — he lost track more than a decade ago when the figure was over 5,000 — but he can tell you it is the the experience that sets him apart. Every one of them, he says, presents an opportunity to learn and develop training methods, which continue to evolve.

Visitors attending this year’s HorseFest Friday, Saturday and Sunday, March 7, 8 and 9, at the Ozark Empire Fairgrounds in Springfield, Mo., will have the opportunity to learn some of what Lyons has learned. Lyons will put on three clinics each day at HorseFest as well as participate in the Cowboy Church Service on Sunday morning.

One concept the veteran trainer would like people to leave HorseFest with is that it’s best to take a positive approach.

“People tend to work on problems,” he said. “They work on all of these don’ts — don’t bite, don’t kick, don’t buck. My principle is to work on the things you want the horse to do, not the things you don’t want him to do. If you can teach a horse to do what you want, he naturally won’t be doing those other things. And you won’t be spending all your time scolding and correcting.”

Lyons calls the horse “God’s most favorite animal on earth” and he draws lessons from his religious beliefs.

“What is it that God offers us that is most important in life?” he asks. “Peace. Peace is truly what we all want in our lives. We have to realize that is what the horse wants, too. He doesn’t want to kick and bite and be nervous. Look at them out in the pasture.

“I realized that I didn’t have to make a horse stop doing those things I didn’t want him to do. I just needed to show him there’s a place where he can be at peace," Lyons said. "When I found that, I found my horses latched onto the training so much easier and so much faster. It’s a hard principle to work with at first but when you understand it, you’ll see results.”

Lyons' own evolution into less aggressive horse training methods can be traced back to a single day in 1979. He was getting a horse ready for a show and he was frustrated. He was using a big bit and a tie-down and a German martingale and all kinds of training techniques he thought he had to use.

“I was picking on that horse and doing things I really wasn’t comfortable with,” he recalled. “I knew that I would have to stand in front of God and answer for the way I was treating that horse. I knew that God would forgive me but thinking about it changed my life and changed the way I work with horses.

“I got rid of all that junk (the training aids) and kept a d-ring snaffle and decided if I couldn’t train a horse with that I just wouldn’t do it.”

He figured out how to do it so well that his John Lyons Certification Program for training trainers has produced some of the top horse trainers across the nation.