Horseback riding is a skill that develops over time and our Dinner Show is blessed with some of the best professionals in the world who perform every night for the delight of our audience.

Ongoing training is instrumental to maintaining the standard of excellence expected of both the riders and horses performing at our Arabian Nights Dinner Show. Arabian Nights contracts trainers in a variety of riding disciplines to instruct riders and horses on a regular basis.

Kami Newby and horse Comanche listen to instruction from Kayce Carter.

Recently, a select group of riders and horses participated in training sessions in the discipline of reining. Reining is a discipline based loosely on maneuvers used to herd cattle—showcasing control, speed and precision in a variety of movements. Spins, sliding stops and rollbacks are the hallmarks of this discipline and they all require carefully coordinated movements based on the relationship of a rider and his or her horse.

Reining is demonstrated in a unique way during the Arabian Nights performances, in the Native American Tribute act during most of the year and the Sugarplum Fairy act of the Holiday Show. Unlike competitive reining, the focus of these acts is on the emotional connection between the horse and rider, rather than technical proficiency of maneuvers.  This approach often requires the riders to steer their horse without using their reins, making the communication between the horse and rider even more important.

During a weekend of lessons at Arabian Nights, five horses and eight riders learned to hone their skills in the discipline of reining with the help of expert reining rider Kayce Carter. Kayce’s years of experience in competitive reining allow her to instruct each rider on how they can work with each horse to achieve the best performance possible.

The reining lessons are part of an ongoing process to uphold one of the founding ideas of Arabian Nights—that it would be a world-class training facility for equestrians. Four of the eight riders are just beginning to learn the discipline of reining, and all riders had no knowledge of reining prior to working for Arabian Nights.

To learn more about this, call us at 407-239-9223.

Every performer at Arabian Nights Dinner Show is a perfectionist. No matter what their background may be, they all share a common bond that is a mix of a deep love for horses and a determination to entertain with flawless grace.

Performing in front of a crowd is not an easy task and every one of our highly-trained horseback performers understands that there is no room for error when a show is on. Add to that the fact that they are performing during a select number of dates during the Holiday Season and the phrase “practice makes perfect” takes on a whole new meaning.

Katherine Cox, Veronika Gatszegi and Michael Matrin practicing with guidance from Barn Manager Csaba Szilagyi.

This Christmas Season, Arabian Nights Dinner Show is putting on a brand new Holiday Show, featuring some of our most daring stunts ever—which makes the show even more difficult when the performers wear their amazing costumes on horseback.

Ilya Borzenkov is taking direction from veteran performer and Barn Manager Csaba Szilagyi while learning the Jack Frost silks routine featured in the Holiday Show

Arabian Nights performers practice on a daily basis. Only a handful of practices are in full garb, but every practice session is treated as if it was the real deal. Such is their dedication that performers may not even notice a difference between a full crowd or the empty seats of a practice session, as they are concentrated on the task at hand.

So the next time you visit Arabian Nights Dinner Show—and we hope you are planning on coming to one of our Holiday Show performances—be sure to remember that every one of our performers and horses have worked very hard when no one is looking to bring their own personal magic to the stage.

Practice does make perfect—and we like to show it off in every single show.

To get the latest showtimes for Arabian nights, follow this link.