One of two Dans (with friend Dan James) in Double Dan Horsemanship’s travelling clinics, Mr Steers conducted a weekend workshop and put on an evening show.

In trouble at the age of 13 in Western Australia, his mum sent him to his policeman father’s farm.

“She sent me for a bit of discipline and I loved it,” Mr Steers said.

He soon found himself riding horses and eventually his father found him an apprenticeship with a farrier.

“He organised it with a really good horseman, too,” he said.

That horseman was Ian Francis and Mr Steers credits him with teaching him the power of a gentle touch.

“We would shoe horses in the morning and train them in the afternoon,” he said.

“He took problem horses.

“A lot of my foundation is from him.”

Yet the wider world was to bring some shocks.

“I did not see anything rough (with horses) for a long time,” Mr Steers said.

“A lot of people have come from seeing things a little forceful and rough, but I was sheltered.

“It was not until I started travelling that I saw other people’s methods with horses and it shocked me.

“I was 17 the first time I saw it.

“I was working with a trainer and thought it might be just him, but it was within the industry.”

He does not wish to be seen as a “horse whisperer”.

“A good mentor, Ian Francis, says he is not a horse whisperer; he wants his horses to hear him loud and clear, and I am similar.

“I also want to be fair to my horse and make sure he understands.

“If it is continually hard, you are doing something wrong.

“I am the teacher and he is the student.

“If he is having trouble learning, whose fault is it?

“I might have to dig deep sometimes, but I am looking to myself to make sure I make it as easy as I can.

“I spend a lot of time in reflection.”

He has also spent a bit of time in traction; both his hips were broken when his horse slipped and rolled on him 18 months ago.

The only betrayal of that incident is a slight limp when he first alights from a horse, but nothing can keep him from them.