From my very first researches about natural horsemanship, I found many mentions of Pat Parelli and his methods. I had the opportunity to watch some videos which pushed me away from this horse(business)man. Yet, it was about time for me to read carefully and analyze his main book Natural Horse-Man-Ship as I received many questions about Parelli instructors…

“Horsemanship is nothing more than a series of good habits.

Natural Horse-Man-Ship, Pat Parelli

A rich NH (Natural Horsemanship) background

Pat Parelli started his equine career like most of us: he was passionate with horses, but HE had the chance to meet great horsemen who taught him all the basics. We can easily observe the strong influence of Tom Dorrance and Ray Hunt all along the book. Indeed, he regularly mentions how important it is to adjust to the situation, to feel of the horse and for the horse, to make our ideas become the horse’s ideas, etc. Sometimes, he just copies and pastes concepts _ which I do not criticize as we do not have to re-invent the wheel all the time and something good should be used, recycled and reused: