DressageArena.org

The concept of Natural Horsemanship is a wonderful idea. The biggest problem with it is kinda like the food we buy in the store. Just because those chips are called "All Natural" doesn’t mean they really are. I recently ran into a new juice at the store called Organics. It isn’t organic, btw. But they call it Organics, and people who don’t read the label buy the stuff, thinking they are getting something natural and healthy, when in fact someone just slapped a good name on a bad product.

Trainers in the U.S. are like that. We aren’t required to pass a test, or apply for a license over here. We can simply hang out a sign, open up a website, and call ourselves Natural Horsemen. We might be riding a horse with a blocked tail, we might be taping 20 hours of tape just to get that 30 minute RFD tv special, we might be drugging our horses before we ‘train’ them. We can still call ourselves Natural Horsemen.

The answer is simple: I use methods that work for me, and for the horses that like those methods. When one method doesn’t work, or when it relies on some special halter or other gimmick, then I move to a different method. And I evaluate each trainer, with my professional eyes, to decide which ones are pulling wool over the eyes of new horse handlers.

So when you look at a trainer who can’t train a horse without some wierd method that would freak out the average horse (and person) then I move on. Natural means natural. There is nothing natural about waving a flag at the end of a stick at a horse.

No, mainly because I know so many people who’ve tried it and it’s made their horses work. It’s made out to be a miracle that anyone can do, but it really annoys me because it isn’t and they just don’t say that – just like any form of training the person needs to have a knowledge of horse and pony care and training it’s not just for any old person to pick up a parelli training book and work miracles because it doesn’t work like that.
Also the gadgets involved in a lot of these ‘natural horsemanship’ techniques make me really question what the heck is natural about it – especially parelli they’ve got a brilliant con going on there, the ammount of money people pay to get gadgets that make their horses run rings around them is ridiculous.
I have read and used advice on monty roberts books before, but as far as I can see his methods are a lot of common sense that’s been used by traditional trainers for years.
If people actually took a step back and looked at a problem, instead of just running at it without thinking I’m sure a lot of people would come up with answers that loads of natural horsemanship trainers deem as a whole new method, when infact a lot of it is just sense.
So all in all I’m not a natural horsemanship fan, I do like some of the ideas but the ammount of false hope given to people who’re taken for idiots is just not right. And I’m also not happy with how a lot of them slate traditional methods as cruel, they are not cruel when done right and have worked for years – all the horses I’ve worked with have been trained mainly using traditional methods and very few of them seem to have had a problem with that, and if they have it’s often from bad training not the actual method itself.

Yes. Research Tom Dorrance, then his best student, Ray Hunt, and understand the true meaning of natural horsemanship.

Currently there are some good people out there moving this forward.
You can take something from all of them because they all should use the same principles, just a slightly different technique.

We watched Richard Winters at Road to the Horse this year. He is a virtual unknown in my area, but his technique was smooth and easy. I am sure there are plenty of clinicians as good. I even watched a prison inmate in the BLM mustang training program for adopting as good or better than most trainers.

The horseman we like to watch the best is Chris Cox. We have gone to see him in person 3 times. If you take some techniques back from all of these people, you can really open your eyes to an easier way to communicate with your horse.

We have also watched Ray Hunt (now deceased), Curt Pate, John Lyons, Dennis Reis, Craig Cameron, Tommy Garland, Stacey Westfall,
Clinton Anderson, Ken McNabb, Mike Kevil, and several of the women trainers who cater to female crowds. Some are superior in their thinking and methods, some are stuck in old thoughts. We even watched a disaster of a session with Ryan Gingerich, one that obviously didn’t make it on his TV show.

All in all, if you can learn something from everyone once you understand the thinking and behavior of the horse, even if that something is what not to do.

I can see little natural in these trainers. Anyone would think they are doing something new but it isn’t. It is just wrapped in a different packet and recycled and sold to those silly enough to believe that these people are talking language equus!

I do very little with my young horses, I just do not have the time but, I can drape them with a polythene wrap, they will walk over anything, do not have a round pen to chase them around until they are dizzy and certainly do not have time to play games with them.

I think in many ways they have opened up the fact that horse do have a language to the uninitiated and that is about all.

Methods used to break horses in the UK have been different to just riding bronc until he stops bucking – though there are few that seem to do that nowadays.

My ways work, I do not use force, they do it because they respect me and want to please.

nope. i don’t do it cause there is no point. my horse doesn’t HAVE to be able to share his paddock with a giant pink inflatable ball. most of the stuff is pointless, and some is dangerous. there is no use for a show horse to get into that stuff. but if you like good for you. but research EVERYONE before choosing one persons ideas to follow. Clinton Anderson, Monty Roberts, John Lyons, etc.

i do a little bit of it, i don’t go all in to the major stuff i just do a litte bit.
um dunno i read it in a book