All donations are 501 (c)3 and tax deductible.
About the Leach Colt Starting Academy
Leach Colt Starting Academy (LCSA) is a grassroots educational and occupational workplace program committed to specialized workforce training for recently released offenders seeking to gain skills, certification, and business acumen in colt starting and horse training.
LCSA's mission is to provide a rigorous curriculum and a set of core values to assist attendees in regaining a new life with purpose. Our academy certification is successful in helping reduce recidivism and provides inmates with a valuable occupation that ultimately reduces their dependence on assistance programs. Specifically, LCSA works to provide long-term occupational support, job placement assistance, and a vibrant career in horse training for underserved populations, all while working to protect and preserve an American icon, the wild Mustang.
Lanny Leach working in the capacity of the LCSA founder has been a key clinician and consultant at the Arizona Wild Horse Inmate Program in Florence, AZ where he worked with specially selected inmates the vital occupational skillset, mindset, and next steps in a career required to train horses and manage a small business. The LSA intern experience is life-changing and has led to promising careers for interns. With Lanny's supervision, these special training interns work specifically with wild American Mustangs, protected by the United States Government.
These valued and historic horses obtained through the Bureau of Land Management undergo specialized training with LCSA interns. Once the LCSA interns complete each Mustang's training, the horses are homed to private owners, working ranches, and horse trainers who will offer these animals long and useful lives.
This full-circle experience for both intern and horse has been groundbreaking in terms of quality of life, sustainability, and opportunity for both person and horse.
Photos by Jamie Williams
Mustang Moments Documentary
Lanny Leach
Lanny Leach is a nationally known horseman and clinician and comes from a line of true American ranching heritage. Since his great grandfather homesteaded in Nebraska many years ago, his family has managed cattle ranches where they started, trained, rode, and sold their own horses.
When Lanny was two years old, his father started Lanny in his own saddle while working on the ranch. When Lanny was 12 years old, he broke his first horse. He continued on to high school rodeos, winning several All-Around Cowboy titles during that time. Lanny has competed in many Extreme Mustang Makeover events, placed in the Top 10 in seven finals throughout California, Colorado, and Texas, and won the prestigious George Gregory True Grit Memorial award at the Mustang Million competition in Ft. Worth, TX. He’s the 2013 AZ Horseman’s Challenge Champion and has returned for several years as a judge and clinician for this event. He was invited to compete in the Colt Starting Challenge USA program where he finished second at the National Finals in Las Vegas in 2015.
Outside the competition arena, Lanny served as training advisor for the Montgomery Creek Ranch wild horse sanctuary in Northern California. More than 200 wild horses and mustangs have been settled on to the 2,000-acre facility, where he established a formal training program. He has been deeply involved in the Arizona Wild Horse Inmate Program where trains the select inmates the skillset needed to break wild mustangs which can then be rehomed into the public through the Arizona Wild Horse Inmate Program via the Mustangs of America Foundation and the Florence Training and Holding Facility through the Bureau of Land Management.
Arizona Wild Horse Inmate Program
Mustangs of America Foundation
Florence Training and Holding Facility
Bureau of Land Management (blm.gov)
In 2016 Lanny was asked to help pick out & train of the Mustangs used in the 90 min documentary “Unbranded.” The mustangs selected covered 3000 miles, over 5 states, 773 million acres, and rode through from the Mexico border through Arizona, Utah, Idaho, Wyoming & Montana to the Canadian border. Lanny was honored to be asked to participate in this epic journey by the film's creator, producer, and participant, Ben Masters. Below is a Western Horseman magazine article about the epic journey: Border to Border - Western Horseman.
Lanny is currently training out of the Crazy Hearts Ranch in Tucson, Az where he trains for all horse disciplines including western pleasure, performance, trail riding, and reining cow horses. He conducts clinics, offers private lessons, and horse training there, at your ranch, or throughout the United States.
Photo by Roni Ziemba
Get involved
LCSA’s currently working with Mustangs of America Foundation, a 501(c)(3) non-profit organization, to solicit and manage funds for scholarships to attend the Academy. To support the scholarship program, you can donate directly to the Mustangs of America Foundation and designate that your donation goes directly to the scholarship fund that has been started for the academy. All donations to the scholarship program are tax deductible and can be made monthly, quarterly, or annually. We also need material goods, services and donations to cross off our wish list.
Photo by Jamie Williams
Photo by Jamie Williams