LEIGH SALES, PRESENTER: Here is a story about Australia's next generation of horse whisperers. Dan James and Dan Steers met by chance at a Kimberley cattle station five years ago. Now they're taking on the world, as Bronwyn Herbert reports.

BRONWYN HERBERT, REPORTER: It's known as extreme equine entertainment. Two young Australians performing tricks and stunts with horses, wowing audiences here and around the world.

DAN STEERS: We've got a horse that can gallop in from a large distance and unassisted will come galloping over and then sit on a large bean bag or a cushion. And for a horse to sit from a standstill is hard enough. Like, there's not many horses in the world that can do that. But as far as we know, he's the only one that can run in and do it unassisted, which is sorta pretty cool and of course the kids and everybody enjoy it. I get the same reaction every time: everybody loves it.

DAN JAMES: When I look down, I can see those two horses moving underneath me and I'm just like, "Wow, you guys are actually sticking by me and staying there." It's a really neat deal for me.

BRONWYN HERBERT: Dan James moved from Queensland to a Kimberley cattle station when he was 21 to help train 200 horses. There he met Dan Steers. The two realised they shared a love of horse entertainment and both wanted to turn that passion into a living. After a short stint performing at shows in Perth, they took a gamble and started competing at some of America's top horse events.

DAN STEERS: For our kind of stuff, because of the limited population here in Australia, I mean basically you're looking at in the states that they have a larger registered horse number than we have our entire population. So it just comes down to the volume of people.

BRONWYN HERBERT: That plunge overseas is now paying dividends for the double Dan team. Apart from a plethora of awards, including the World Equestrian Games held in Kentucky, they're now contracted the one of America's largest thoroughbred studs to teach horsemanship skills to staff.

Television and movies like Jackie Chan's Shanghai Noon have provided some of their creative inspiration.

DAN STEERS: The horse just sits like a dog from a standstill. And I thought, "That is just crazy." Never seen it before and thought I want to teach that." It was only - it was years later that both Dan and I were talking and when we'd joined at El Caballo and talking about, you know, the same sorta thing. He had a similar moment and we didn't know how to start - how to train that and we just sorta brush off and we both had said to each other, "If we could do that, if that was the one trick we could do in our lifetime, we would be happy."

DAN JAMES: I think the biggest thing with horses is that we're always limited to our own imagination. And quite often, you know, with a lot of the miles that we drive, like, going to from one event to the next, that's when a lot of these crazy ideas that we come up with are sorta dreamt up and we sorta sit there and all of a sudden it's like, you know, you see those horses have those light bulb moments at times where they're like, "I got it. I get it." And that's what happened last - we were just driving along and all of a sudden, it'd be like - you just feel like just about pulling over the truck and getting the horse out the back and going out and trying it because it kinda gets you that excited.

BRONWYN HERBERT: And while visiting family in Perth over the summer, the boys shared some of their techniques with the next generation, teaching not only how to keep horses calm and safe, but a few tricks as well.

Angela Clifton's son was almost killed from a wayward horse hoof, but rather than sell their ponies, she decided to invest in better horse training.

ANGELA CLIFTON: We coulda lost him. It was really serious. When we saw the Double Dans and their show two years ago, we thought, "Well, when you can get your horses to be that obedient and that respectful, that's gotta be something that we've gotta get into."

BRONWYN HERBERT: Her 14-year-old daughter Shani has now trained her own foal.

SHANI CLIFTON: We can teach him to pick up a hat and lay down and just follow me around in liberty and a 200-acre paddock. He does whatever I ask, whatever manoeuvre of the Double Dan I ask for him, he'll do it at liberty with no (inaudible) lead.

BRONWYN HERBERT: The show is also motivating her to keep working with her horse.

SHANI CLIFTON: It gives you the sort of motive to keep practising when you're having a hard time with your horse.

BRONWYN HERBERT: And for the Double Dan team it's been a surreal ride to the top.

DAN JAMES: Very short time ago I was up on a cattle station in the Kimberleys sitting under a tree at dinner camp with the rest of the ringers and to go from that to where literally there's a lotta days that we were involved with some of the most wealthiest horse people in the world whether it be in Lexington, Kentucky with the race horse business or with some of the other equestrian people that we work with and their horses all over the world.

LEIGH SALES: Bronwyn Herbert reporting.