Are the days of the big horse gurus over?

sbloom said:
I hear horror stories about most of the big names including ones that many think are whiter than white. And so often when we find someone who transforms our understanding of the horse in some way, we look back on trainers we used to really respect and we see the holes, or worse.
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Yes I know .I had a trainer once who never hesitated to reach for a stick.I didn't always like what he did but at least he was honest.He never tried to say that he was hitting the horse because he loved it.
 
TPO said:
What dvd? I have most of them and can't recall any terrorised horses (& I'm the biggest softie going) 🤷🏼‍♀️
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Well I binned them so I can't tell you exactly which one but I do remember the terrorised little mare and him wittering on about how she would cut him some slack soon.I would have cut him some slack alright. I think he has anger management issues amongst other things.
 
I invest my money in face-to-face lessons and clinics. But I can only do that as MR etc brought this sort of training to people's attention. Now I can guarantee, anywhere you are in the UK you will be able to access good quality, consistent, kind but effective training.
 
There are new gurus now, that's the thing. That TRT bloke, for example. Plus, the rise of social media means that there are now hundreds of smaller "gurus" who make most of their income from online learning platforms rather than practical work with client's horses. Some of them are great; some of them are but pretty words, with no scientific backing, about what horses do or how horses feel.

Either way, there's someone for everyone these days - and not working face-to-face with clients makes it harder for them to get caught not practicing what they preach.
 
Bluewaves said:
Michael Peace just seems to have a lovely, mannerly, effective way about him when i watch his videoa. Please don’t anyone now who knows him tell me terrible things about him. It will break my heart.
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same here, did not see much, but he is so raw yet effective, and always stroking and talking to the horses, acknowledging them as living creatures, who need to communicate with the person they are working with.
 
eahotson said:
Well I binned them so I can't tell you exactly which one but I do remember the terrorised little mare and him wittering on about how she would cut him some slack soon.I would have cut him some slack alright. I think he has anger management issues amongst other things.
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We'll have to agree to disagree. No idea what he's like in private, although there are hundreds/thousands out there who do and all speak highly of him, but his public behaviour has always been rock steady and calm with horses. His "calling card" is his calmness.


I couldn't imagine the likes of Ray Hunt putting up with anyone with questionable behaviour towards horses either never mind every emerging trainer wanting to associate with him and name drop working with him.

MR and Parelli were my first introduction to "natural" horsemanship. What they had in common were marketing gurus! MR had a Foster daughter in marketing and PP was a travelling clinician until he met his future wife who was a head of marketing (or similar) at the time.

There is this misnomer that natural= good/kind but it sure as Heck worked over here!

What MR, PP et al were doing wasn't new or original. There were plenty of trainers/clinicians/horsemen (nearly always men. Aside from Stacey Westfall & Lesley Desmond I can't think of any female BNT in this sphere) all doing this just without the same platform.

Nowadays I don't think considering the horse is considered as "woo woo" as it once was. In general people are beginning to understand the importance and benefit of groundwork [done well] and how it tra sfwrs to ridden work. That seemed to be a stumbling block with thr P system.

If you want to see a trainer with anger issues Clinton is your man. A misogynistic bully of ever there was one. His series used to be on H&C. I remember him hammered a wee bay TB who was extremely lame. There have been a few big threads in COTH about his behaviour. At one point he made a reply video calling women names and belittling them.

I saw WS in person 2014/15. It was horrible. He set about the quietest horse there and kneed it in the underside of its stomach. He spent the rest of thr day justifying his actions and comparing himself to an electric fence and the horse "choosing" not to move away from it. I mean aside from thr fact he stepper towards the horse before setting about it. He was a misogynistic horror too. Constantly critiscing woman and calling hem liars for wearing make up and push up bras amongst other things.

He's done a 180 since his breakdown and epiphany but I'm having a real hard time believing a word of it. Not that he'll care, he's coining in even more with his "relationship programme". Having said that his original stuff on YouTube is easily accessible for people having issues. He doesn't do anything new but it's easily available for someone wanting to learn basic techniques.

Way back in 2003 I worked on cattle stations in thr northern territory and part of thst was starting horses. They would have semi feral horse going under saddle in 3-5days. This was your average Joe ringer, not a specific horse trainer. I was all very no, no, no and BHS about thr whole thing

I spent a fair while watching them work with the horses in the round pen. None of these guys had ever heard of MR or PP but they all did similar groundwork because that was the best way to work with feral horses.

I guess that was one of my (many!) issued with MR. The majority aren't working with never been handled lived out on 1000s acres youngstock. It's spoilt Peaches who's been "loved on" and handled in a certain way then all of a sudden is getting chased around an arena in the name of join up ™️.

Anyway when I got back to th4 UK and wanted to learn more about thst way of working with horses ans western riding MR and PP were at th4 fore. I couldn't gel with it at all.

It was only through reading various American magazines that I learnt about the teaching of Ray Hunt, Buck, Mark R etc along with loads of others like John Lyons, Richard Winters and Mike Bridges.

Admittedly I didn't get th4 Buck stuff initially either. At varying times I've had thoughts like "all he does is chase them in circles", "what is he actually trying to achive", "he's not doing anything", "there's no difference", "he's so strict" etc etc

It was only with a lot more education that I could start to see what he was doing and why. More importantly how the horses were responding, small releases, their confidence improving along with suppleness and so on and so forth. I've watched his dvds countless times and I still see something new in a horse every time.

I did get a space on a clinic with him at Aintree. I posted on here about it and the replies put me off to the point that I withdrew. With hindsight I wish I'd gone but I clearly didn't know enough to have enough faith in my training and my understanding of his training so it happened for a reason. Now that I know better I can try to do better. I'm a million miles from being a good horseman but I at least now have a smidgen of an idea of what a good horseman is.

Like I said I'm the ultimate softy and, while I've never seen a horse terrorised or even scared by Buck, I did wonder why he kept going at some points but he *always* got that breakthrough & release and the horse was always better for it. I know personally thins I've screwed up by quitting too soon when things got hard. I don't mean a tricky/dangerous horse but quitting before the horse understood something because it was difficult etc. Hard for me to explain written rather rather spoken 😬

I guess we're all just hopefully trying to get better and do better. People I liked I no longer do, people I didnt understand I now like and respect. As long as the horse is always the first priority and it always is eith the trainers I follow these days.
 
TPO said:
We'll have to agree to disagree. No idea what he's like in private, although there are hundreds/thousands out there who do and all speak highly of him, but his public behaviour has always been rock steady and calm with horses. His "calling card" is his calmness.


I couldn't imagine the likes of Ray Hunt putting up with anyone with questionable behaviour towards horses either never mind every emerging trainer wanting to associate with him and name drop working with him.

MR and Parelli were my first introduction to "natural" horsemanship. What they had in common were marketing gurus! MR had a Foster daughter in marketing and PP was a travelling clinician until he met his future wife who was a head of marketing (or similar) at the time.

There is this misnomer that natural= good/kind but it sure as Heck worked over here!

What MR, PP et al were doing wasn't new or original. There were plenty of trainers/clinicians/horsemen (nearly always men. Aside from Stacey Westfall & Lesley Desmond I can't think of any female BNT in this sphere) all doing this just without the same platform.

Nowadays I don't think considering the horse is considered as "woo woo" as it once was. In general people are beginning to understand the importance and benefit of groundwork [done well] and how it tra sfwrs to ridden work. That seemed to be a stumbling block with thr P system.

If you want to see a trainer with anger issues Clinton is your man. A misogynistic bully of ever there was one. His series used to be on H&C. I remember him hammered a wee bay TB who was extremely lame. There have been a few big threads in COTH about his behaviour. At one point he made a reply video calling women names and belittling them.

I saw WS in person 2014/15. It was horrible. He set about the quietest horse there and kneed it in the underside of its stomach. He spent the rest of thr day justifying his actions and comparing himself to an electric fence and the horse "choosing" not to move away from it. I mean aside from thr fact he stepper towards the horse before setting about it. He was a misogynistic horror too. Constantly critiscing woman and calling hem liars for wearing make up and push up bras amongst other things.

He's done a 180 since his breakdown and epiphany but I'm having a real hard time believing a word of it. Not that he'll care, he's coining in even more with his "relationship programme". Having said that his original stuff on YouTube is easily accessible for people having issues. He doesn't do anything new but it's easily available for someone wanting to learn basic techniques.

Way back in 2003 I worked on cattle stations in thr northern territory and part of thst was starting horses. They would have semi feral horse going under saddle in 3-5days. This was your average Joe ringer, not a specific horse trainer. I was all very no, no, no and BHS about thr whole thing

I spent a fair while watching them work with the horses in the round pen. None of these guys had ever heard of MR or PP but they all did similar groundwork because that was the best way to work with feral horses.

I guess that was one of my (many!) issued with MR. The majority aren't working with never been handled lived out on 1000s acres youngstock. It's spoilt Peaches who's been "loved on" and handled in a certain way then all of a sudden is getting chased around an arena in the name of join up ™️.

Anyway when I got back to th4 UK and wanted to learn more about thst way of working with horses ans western riding MR and PP were at th4 fore. I couldn't gel with it at all.

It was only through reading various American magazines that I learnt about the teaching of Ray Hunt, Buck, Mark R etc along with loads of others like John Lyons, Richard Winters and Mike Bridges.

Admittedly I didn't get th4 Buck stuff initially either. At varying times I've had thoughts like "all he does is chase them in circles", "what is he actually trying to achive", "he's not doing anything", "there's no difference", "he's so strict" etc etc

It was only with a lot more education that I could start to see what he was doing and why. More importantly how the horses were responding, small releases, their confidence improving along with suppleness and so on and so forth. I've watched his dvds countless times and I still see something new in a horse every time.

I did get a space on a clinic with him at Aintree. I posted on here about it and the replies put me off to the point that I withdrew. With hindsight I wish I'd gone but I clearly didn't know enough to have enough faith in my training and my understanding of his training so it happened for a reason. Now that I know better I can try to do better. I'm a million miles from being a good horseman but I at least now have a smidgen of an idea of what a good horseman is.

Like I said I'm the ultimate softy and, while I've never seen a horse terrorised or even scared by Buck, I did wonder why he kept going at some points but he *always* got that breakthrough & release and the horse was always better for it. I know personally thins I've screwed up by quitting too soon when things got hard. I don't mean a tricky/dangerous horse but quitting before the horse understood something because it was difficult etc. Hard for me to explain written rather rather spoken 😬

I guess we're all just hopefully trying to get better and do better. People I liked I no longer do, people I didnt understand I now like and respect. As long as the horse is always the first priority and it always is eith the trainers I follow these days.
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Thank you for your reply.I don't like or trust most/any guru.As for Buck,I think we shall have to agree to disagree.
 
I learned about the nh world initially via Mark Rashid. There was no doubt to me then that what he was offering was different from the BHS/Classical/Traditional whatever I was used to. And years of experience and exposure to a variety of excellent trainers of all types have not changed my conviction that there is something fundamentally different that approach brings to horsemanship. I have struggled to articulate that difference over the years and latterly have given up trying unless people are actively interested. There are enough people out there who share my love for this perspective and discussions with people who actively hate it or who say it's all just common sense anyway are generally not very satisfying for anyone involved.

I do loathe the 'guru' label though - whether applied by cultic adherents or carefully cultivated by the horsemen (they do largely seem to be men) themselves.

I work with Joe Midgley who actively rejects the 'horse whisperer' label saying it's lazy thinking: what he does is teachable and learnable. Citing some sort of magical connection means people don't need to bother learning this themselves. I find this myself when I catch other people's hard to catch horses for them. I can show them what I am doing but they don't want to know. They just say 'oh you have the magic touch!' No I don't!

I know Kathleen Lindley Beckham too who says much the same thing. Take trailer loading. She says all horses can learn to trailer load. A thousand trainers have worked out how to teach this. Those trainers offer their advice freely. There are 100 free demos on Youtube. People only still have a problem with it because either they reject the advice from the people who really do know how to teach this simply and effectively. Or because people like Richard Maxwell charge £500 to teach the horse how to do it, as if what he does is highly technical, requiring guru status. It isn't and it doesn't.

I like how BB works and all the trainers I really respect use variations of his (Ray Hunt's) approaches. But I did not warm to the man when I rode at Aintree at his clinic. I don't think his DVDs really showcase him well either. He plays to the gallery and I find that off putting. I loathe everything about the Parellis, though I don't doubt they have grreat horsemanship skills under the showmanship. Though I honesly don't know anything about them as the hard sell was violently off putting to me immediataly.

So I love the perspective and the way horses trained this way feel to ride. (Read the Joe Midgley thread to see how utterly diffefent it really is from 'other' approaches). But I steer clear of the 'names'.
 
LEC said:
Meh it’s horses, people always trying to reinvent the wheel. Horses haven’t fundamentally changed in 300 years. People just get better at selling reinventing the wheel.
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And yet science is transforming our understanding of horses, I see it as the masters of the past would be even more amazing if they had today's knowledge. My two favourite approaches, BTMM and Science of Motion (neither cover everything, neither is perfect) are based on some new understandings.
 
One thing that has put me off some of the western trainers is how long they think it's OK to sit on a young and recently backed horse for. There was a clinic described on here a couple of years back where there was a 3 hour session and someone was expected to be on the horse's back for that entire time, using it as a seat to watch the others when they were not themselves doing an exercise. A friend goes to a very experienced Western trainer and was happy to be told that this expert had sat on her 4 year old for 3 hours while he was training other people, to teach it to stand quiet while things were going on around it.

There doesn't seem to be enough understanding in the Western riding world that standing still with a weight on its back is not effortless for a horse and needs just a much conditioning as moving around does. Or am I generalising from too small a sample?
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I learned a hell of a lot more from Ben Hart than one of the Showmen of the circuit (and I did see a few in action). I'd say he's more a people trainer, which is often what horse owners need. He once said to us on a workshop to never make anyone your guru.

The ironic thing is that he was probably the closest thing to a guru any of us there would have wanted. 😆
 
LEC said:
Meh it’s horses, people always trying to reinvent the wheel. Horses haven’t fundamentally changed in 300 years. People just get better at selling reinventing the wheel.
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And yet when I first bought a horse, in 1981, they were described as "aged" after 8 years and lost value from 10 years onwards because of the short length of time it was expected they would stay in work. It was impossible to insure a 15 year old, they were deemed too high risk.

Now a ten year old is a prime age, full of experience with a lot of years left, it would be laughable to think a15 year old couldn't be insured and it's routine to see horses in their 20's in hard work.

That change has happened not only through medical science but through better understanding of the right way to train them.
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i once saw a video of a western trainer backing an unbroken horse in a small pen, possibly so it could not bolt off with him, that man did everything to provoke the poor horse to buck, revolt, react i thought, suppose he was scared of it really, or took it for granted it would try to chuck him off.

and he had the audacity to make a video of it as if it was a good example.
 
ycbm said:
Or am I generalising
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Yip 















I've got the same issues with young horses being started regardless of if it's western or racing.





Removing the age factor from the sitting around on a horse for hours; it

The forum isn't playing ball...TBC 😅
 
I'm not sure these "gurus" are/were that different from a lot of trainers, they are/were just very good at selling what they did. I don't mean that negatively as I think they have improved the lives of many many horses by making people realise that you don't need force. I also agree that there are some methods which aren't physically forceful but are still uncomfortable to watch.

I think the whole philosophy, for want of a better word, has been democratised and there are lots of people using these approaches and selling the fact that they use them. Many always did use them, they just never thought to sell what they did as it was pretty normal to them. We have two women locally who have worked with Monty Roberts and Mark Rashid respectively but have adapted what they've learned to suit them. They're very good at what they do but they're not considered 'gurus' as they do what they do on a daily basis working one to one rather than doing big demos. I think those days have passed to a certain extent because the approaches are far more normal these days and therefore less watchable.
 
LEC said:
Meh it’s horses, people always trying to reinvent the wheel. Horses haven’t fundamentally changed in 300 years. People just get better at selling reinventing the wheel.


tristar said:
that is so true, and was my impression
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It's not true though. Horses, or rather what we expect them to do and how we expect them to live, has changed enormously in 300 yrs. Back then horses were a tool, a vehicle, an earner. They were generally "broken in" by rote and brute force, and worked hard. It was a blunt instrument.
People using NH/kinder/more thoughtful methods are looking for something much more refined and interactive. The "big names" were and are useful to bring these ideas to a wide audience, so that people might begin to question how and why they do something. I've heard so many "traditional" types say things like "I've always done it like that" (and will continue to do so just because it "works"). The big demos, books etc open a door to a different approach. Nobody is making anyone follow a whole approach or even any of it, but isn't it interesting to see what there might be to improve our experience and that of our horses?
 
Landcruiser said:
LEC said:
Meh it’s horses, people always trying to reinvent the wheel. Horses haven’t fundamentally changed in 300 years. People just get better at selling reinventing the wheel.



It's not true though. Horses, or rather what we expect them to do and how we expect them to live, has changed enormously in 300 yrs. Back then horses were a tool, a vehicle, an earner. They were generally "broken in" by rote and brute force, and worked hard. It was a blunt instrument.
People using NH/kinder/more thoughtful methods are looking for something much more refined and interactive. The "big names" were and are useful to bring these ideas to a wide audience, so that people might begin to question how and why they do something. I've heard so many "traditional" types say things like "I've always done it like that" (and will continue to do so just because it "works"). The big demos, books etc open a door to a different approach. Nobody is making anyone follow a whole approach or even any of it, but isn't it interesting to see what there might be to improve our experience and that of our horses?
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You make a lot of assumptions there. There are many treatises and books about training horses from 300, 500, even 2000 years ago that will reference the love that a good horseman feels for his horses, how to treat them fairly and preserve them for long lives. Yes, the majority of horses probably didn't benefit from such good training and care, but then neither do most horses nowadays.
 
LEC said:
Meh it’s horses, people always trying to reinvent the wheel. Horses haven’t fundamentally changed in 300 years. People just get better at selling reinventing the wheel.
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They’re not selling the horse though. They’re selling pseudoscience and stories about what they think a horse thinks and feels.
 
Cortez said:
You make a lot of assumptions there. There are many treatises and books about training horses from 300, 500, even 2000 years ago that will reference the love that a good horseman feels for his horses, how to treat them fairly and preserve them for long lives. Yes, the majority of horses probably didn't benefit from such good training and care, but then neither do most horses nowadays.
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I agree. I was generalizing massively. Horsemanship, some good, plenty bad, has been around for as long as we've domesticated horses.
 
Another shout for Ben Hart I was privilaged to a do a two year course with him at Duchy College some twenty years ago, this was the first course of NH in the country. The traditional staff hated him and always gave him the very difficult horses which he then had leading like lambs by the end of the session. They gave him a very big horse that was coming out of its stable like a bullet and knocking people over, within minutes he realised why, the horse was banging his hip on the stable door every time, he got him coming out calmly and told the staff to put him in a suitable stable without a narrow gangway. The only thing I would say is that he went at the horses pace which was usually to slow for most people so his clinics could be a bit like watching paint dry.
 
ycbm said:
And yet when I first bought a horse, in 1981, they were described as "aged" after 8 years and lost value from 10 years onwards because of the short length of time it was expected they would stay in work. It was impossible to insure a 15 year old, they were deemed too high risk.

Now a ten year old is a prime age, full of experience with a lot of years left, it would be laughable to think a15 year old couldn't be insured and it's routine to see horses in their 20's in hard work.

That change has happened not only through medical science but through better understanding of the right way to train them.
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Medical yeah, and actually most horses lives are easier now. They have also become a lot more elitist (valuable) and dare I say it attainable but if you go back to 1920s army manuals the training was actually very good. The horses were valuable commodities and so correct training and care of the horse was vital.
 
LEC said:
Medical yeah, and actually most horses lives are easier now. They have also become a lot more elitist (valuable) and dare I say it attainable but if you go back to 1920s army manuals the training was actually very good. The horses were valuable commodities and so correct training and care of the horse was vital.
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How old do you think I am? I made it clear I was talking about my lifetime and we did have tractors by the time I was born and most horses were leisure horses and I don't think the elitism has changed level at all.
 
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