Midway College's new equine program director teaches how to train horses with body language

"Avo Kiviranna understands the silent language of the horse," KyForward contributor Elizabeth Troutman writes of the new chair of Midway College's equine program. said. “The horse, because it’s a prey animal, will instinctively scrutinize you. Because he wants to know what you are thinking, and the only way you can let him know what you’re thinking is through your body language,” he told Troutman.

Kiviranna, a New York City native who Troutman writes "marveled at the draft horses that delivered blocks of ice to his family’s brownstone," attended the University of Kentucky because “that’s where all the horses were,” he said. He returned to New York and worked as an extension agent, an assistant professor of equine science at the State University of New York at Delhi, a horse trainer, executive director of the American Morgan Horse Association and consultant for a Thoroughbred farm in New York.

He trains "through the least-resistance approach," using "calculated gestures" and what he calls "natural horsemanship," Troutman writes.