Countryfile “horse whisperer”

Kamikaze said:
I can’t stop now.

The “unhandled” horse for starting had in fact been handled daily it’s whole life and was used to being lunged in tack. The “horse that took 3 hours to load” had in fact loaded straight away to get to the demo. My horse who I said I had had 3 weeks and I couldn’t pick up his back feet was rejected as he was too “difficult” to be used as he wouldn’t pick up back feet. The horses were assessed in the round pen while there were numerous tractors etc moving around setting up the seating. Literally right beside them. But His and her horses were not allowed to be exposed to this. They waited until the arena was completely empty and spent an hour riding them before saying their horses hasn’t been ridden that day. Her horse had been ridden intensely for almost 2hrs. This involved cantering over a jump, hauling on the reins to stop, turn and canter back over the jump, hauling on reins and repeating. I felt my horse was girthy. Her advice. Put him in a roller and breastgirth and in a stable and shut the top door and leave him to it.
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There was a MR demo at a centre where I had 'behind the scenes' access - let me just say that Hell would freeze over before I let MR or any of his proteges near my horses.
 
It kind of interests me to wonder if KM regrets some of her early commercialised work with Monty in the UK.

Problem horses require time and patience, the polar opposite to the type of environments they might find themselves in with these commercial roadshows. I suppose people that understand that are then highly suspicious that the practitioners truly have the horses best interests at heart.

So maybe they preselect horses that aren’t really that problematic. Tell a fake story and then the whole thing is a bit farcical.

The knock on effect being that a lot of people that know one side of a horse from the other, then dismiss the practitioner out of hand.

Just my musings anyway
 
TigerTail said:
Before you 'promptly sh!t' on a very well known, experienced person who has done an awful lot to further humane horse handling in the UK perhaps you might get off your enormous ego and do some research?! If you come across in real life like your first post read you must be a delight :eek:
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Your the one that is clearly being rude with your reply, the op was clearly just asking a question, your answer was very uncalled for.
 
Kamikaze said:
I can’t stop now.

The “unhandled” horse for starting had in fact been handled daily it’s whole life and was used to being lunged in tack. The “horse that took 3 hours to load” had in fact loaded straight away to get to the demo. My horse who I said I had had 3 weeks and I couldn’t pick up his back feet was rejected as he was too “difficult” to be used as he wouldn’t pick up back feet. The horses were assessed in the round pen while there were numerous tractors etc moving around setting up the seating. Literally right beside them. But His and her horses were not allowed to be exposed to this. They waited until the arena was completely empty and spent an hour riding them before saying their horses hasn’t been ridden that day. Her horse had been ridden intensely for almost 2hrs. This involved cantering over a jump, hauling on the reins to stop, turn and canter back over the jump, hauling on reins and repeating. I felt my horse was girthy. Her advice. Put him in a roller and breastgirth and in a stable and shut the top door and leave him to it.
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OMG thank you for posting this, I have always been very wary of these showman types.
 
My horse was once used for a RC display with a behaviourist. I said that he was pig to move over on the ground - he would lean into you rather than away. I was told to hold a hoof pick in my hand! Not what I was expecting.
 
I know someone locally who is an accredited MR trainer and had done a lot of work with him at demos etc all over the world. I couldn't comment on the demo side of things as never seen her in action there but I have seen work she does as part of her day to day work. Join up is a tiny part of what she uses - if she uses it at all. I'd say it's far more about having the horse comfortable with her being around, used to her movements and using her body language (and theirs) to train them rather than looking for some sort of magic. She works with them very sympathetically and has been a big help to a lot of people I know but ultimately, it's just quiet consistency, gently correcting or ignoring the bad and praising the hell out of the good. I would use her for certain things if I needed to but I think lots of other trainers use very similar methods without the 'celebrity' endorsement and I would be just as happy to use them too.
 
So they are putting on a show, people have paid lots of money for the tickets, so they have to have horses to work with that are going to "entertain" the crowds, so they can't just have a lot of bad loaders and nothing else.

I have been behind the scenes at a demo and didn't see anything untoward.
 
I went to a MR ‘show’ in the uk around 2006, which gave the impression all horses used in the demo’s were fresh in the pen, not seen by monty before, ‘problem’ horses. We even saw one get ‘backed from ferel’ in half hour...apparently.
It makes a great ’show’, for the unsuspecting audience member. Looks very impressive for a horse to go from ‘wild’ to ‘passive/joined-up’.
I was almost convinced but after the show i wandered around the stable boxes to see the horses, and there was a large warmblood in his box and owner there. Got chatting to her and she said her horse was meant to be in the demo, but in the end wasn’t used, i asked ‘why?’, she said ‘because his behaviour issues arent suitable for it’, and in that moment my MR bubble popped!
The whole show PREMISE was how his method would sort out ANY issue a horse has. Yet here i was facing a horse that couldn’t be used for his method to work on.

So it’s not what it’s made out to be. I’d prefer not to be duped by a horseman - if he’s handled the horse before, dont say you haven’t for ‘showman status’.....so unfortunately that has put MR in a bad light for many horse owners...

However, that’s not to say the methods he advocates don’t have merit. If we can understand how horses process their reality better, we can learn better methods for handling and training them, rather than the old fashioned way of grab whip, crack it until submission, forced fear-based learning resulting in a shut-down personality in the horse that’s now ‘trained and submissive’.
So by MR preferring to gain status of ‘magical horse showman’ and telling lies about horses he’s working with, has now unfortunately eclipsed any merit and validity his method holds as a training approach.
It’s important to be discerning with ALL training methods, and see through the BS of a lot of trainers who like their ‘status’ as a ’famous horseman/woman’.

I’ve taken a lot of useful training tips from so many trainers, and have learnt along the way that the ‘one size fits all’ training method doesn’t exist.
 
I went to a KM demo many years ago where she was working with two shetlands which were hard to catch. The wee rascals would not cooperate at all and she started to get quite cross. Can't say I was particularly impressed. Whereas around the same time I saw richard maxwell a few times and really liked what he was doing.
 
These pics are from H&H, who brought Monty over in 1989 for a 3 day demo at Stoneleigh. I think that it was his first public demo over here.

I volunteered the 3 yo late chestnut git for starting. He was well handled, but genuinely untried. He was fine. It is him in the three yellow boxes, inc the main pic. He always was a self confident thug, so I knew that he wouldn’t come to harm.

There was no messing around behind the scenes at that demo, but the MR bandwagon hadn’t taken off by then, so he couldn’t have got away with it. Maybe he began to believe his own publicity later.

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Several years later I met Kelly Marks at Hartsop Farm, where Adam was shown learning join up. I found her to be very easy, unassuming and good with the horses.
 
I had an IH person out to help with a youngster that developed issues being caught rapidly, and surprisingly. I had really hoped they would help, but they made a bad situation a 100 times worse, and it took over a month before I could touch him again. I was hoping for help with some out of the box thinking, but I would go with clueless.
 
LeneHorse said:
I went to a KM demo many years ago where she was working with two shetlands which were hard to catch. The wee rascals would not cooperate at all and she started to get quite cross. Can't say I was particularly impressed. Whereas around the same time I saw richard maxwell a few times and really liked what he was doing.
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Agree I have been to a Kelly marks and monty roberts demo and it was all show . Richard maxwell in the other hand is much less the showman and more genuine , and focused on long term improvements , I really rate him .
 
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