Kip Fladland a native from Montana, grew up ranching with his grandfather. He was introduced to the methods that Tom Dorrance, Ray Hunt, and Buck Brannaman were promoting in 1985. From then on Kip attended clinics regularly until in 1996 when he had the opportunity to travel and work for Buck  which he did until 2003.  Kip met his wife during his tour with Buck and they were married in 2004. They formed La Riata Ranch their business of training horses for the public. They specialize their horsemanship efforts in colt starting, ranch roping, and problem solving, in addition Missy trains and shows in the sport of dressage.     

Kip first met Ray in Broadus, MT in 1991, and remembers missing all those small changes that Ray mentioned while saddling the colts the first morning. He's been working on getting those changes since.