A Real Horse Whisperer, Monty Roberts

Join-Up: one of the most famous horsemanship marketing product

So many people advised me to learn more about the Join-Up to work with horses that I spent some time to study many videos of Monty Roberts, read some articles related to this practice and some “scientific” comments. In A Real Horse Whisperer, Monty Roberts explains the (supposedly) genesis of his method: Monty’s theory is said to be based on facts observed in nature _ a mare preventing a colt to come back to the herd in order to punish it. At first sight, it sounds quite pleasant, but Monty Roberts’ practice of the theory is completely different:

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:

Each DVD is cut in several chapters and introduced with thoughts and interviews of Buck Brannaman: On Groundwork, What I learnt from Ray, On Release, On Fear, Getting to the Feet, On Gimmicks, Buck’s Approach…

We can divide these DVDs in three sets: Groundwork, Lessons on Horseback, Problem Solving & Words of Wisdom.

Think Harmony with Horses: An In-depth Study of Horse/Man Relationship is composed of three parts: the first one is written by Ray Hunt himself and enunciates its gentle and comprehensive approach of horses, when the second deals with practical questions he has been asked along the clinics, finally the third part has been written by one of his students to expose the actual methods used during a clinic.

Tom Dorrance inheritance

Of course, we can find Tom Dorrance’s philosophy in these pages:

• “That [the horse] is so constituted by nature that he will not offer resistance to any demand made of him which he fully comprehends, if made in a way consistent with the laws of his nature.“
• “That he has no consciousness of his strength beyond his experience, and can be handled according to our will without force.“
• “That we can, in compliance with the laws of his nature, by which he examines all things new to him, take any object, however frightful, around, over, or on him, that does not inflict pain — without causing him to fear.“

These principles are clearly related to some concepts already mentioned in Natural Horsemanship: consistency, gentleness, desensitizing. It is quite interesting to read along the book some concepts and ideas that were contemporary to Xenophon more than 2,000 years ago.