Is Parelli all bad?

[Fjord]

I'm looking into more 'natural horsemanship' ideas to help with Angel and have been recommended a video about the 7 games. I'm not a huge fan of the rope wiggling to get the horse to back up (although it is effective) as the video I saw got a strong reaction, with the horse chucking his head right up. I also don't like the cult like mentality and massive monetisation of Parelli, or some of the demo videos I've seen. Plus the only person in the past who I knew who used it had an unhandleable horse!

But is it all bad? I know it's often a love it or hate it reaction to Parelli but are there good bits? I guess I'm basically asking if I listen to Angel and do things gently, can I get benefit from the 7 games without making her headshy or confusing her?

 

[canteron]

I’m getting in on this early before all the naysayers.

No, it isn’t all bad at all, if it is taught well it’s great - just often it isn’t.

I have a big spooky (now retired) pony - my parelli teacher (also now retired) took us from scary cats to being able to do a dressage test bareback in a halter.

The bond I built with the horse was also amazing.

It’s all about really understanding why you are doing it and patience and timing.

Look at The Horse Place on fb or David Lichman for examples of it being done well and sympathetically. Obviously as with all
horse sports lots of examples of it done badly available … and I don’t think I would let Pat Parelli near me horse!!

 

[Maxidoodle]

Honestly, there are better people to watch. Warwick Schiller is great and his videos are free on you tube, Ryan Rose is very good too, they’re all about “good horsemanship”, there’s a huge amount from the western trainers that you can bring into “English”.

 

[Miss_Millie]

I've never seen anyone do Parelli in a way that looks nice for the horse and have heard actual horror stories from people who attended clinics with Pat & Linda Parelli. The few people I have seen using it IRL who were fanatics had shut down horses who behaved like robots. I would avoid at all costs personally.

 

[Bonnie Allie]

Remember that Parelli was the first commercialised framework that was cleverly monetised and turned up at a time where groundwork was not as well used as it is now.

For its time, it was great. However others have since come to market with similar offerings that are perhaps not as sales heavy as what Parelli is. Pick what works for you.

 

[saalsk]

Like all things - NH has its pros and cons, the best advice I ever got was to watch videos online, and get a feel for what they are doing and why, and then magpie/cherry pick the bits you would like to see yourself doing. Mostly, it is simply rebranding of what people have done for years anyway - being sensible around their horses, giving clear boundaries, never acting in anger, being consistent etc. I'm sure we all had people in our younger days (and now) that we look at and think "wow, their horse is so well behaved" - and there is a reason. I have seen some professionals doing the most awful things in the name of NH , and yes some looked down right ugly and abusive.

The best thing I learned (not from parelli, but it was another NH person ) was to work out if a horse needed a gentle push for confidence, or whether the horse simply needed to stop and process. My old chap would explode if I pushed him when he was nervous or unsure. If I waited, he would essentially count to 10, do some deep breaths and would then be fine.

Good luck with whatever you do, and look at lots of different people, and accept that there won't be just one way of doing things.

 

[Mrs. Jingle]

I stood with my beliefs in always using kind and ethical training of horses and along with my husband, did a swift but very obvious and public exit interrupting one of the demi-God's demos here in Ireland. I can happily confirm my opinion held for many years having handled horses ruined by this cult method of training I would never, ever allow a horse of mine to be handled by one of these deluded horse training 'experts'. Natural horsemanship is the last thing that is being practised in my humble opinion.

 

[Ambers Echo]

It depends what you mean by 'Parelli'.

Pat Parelli was a talented horseman and had a lot to teach. Unfortunately he decided to monetize EVERY SINGLE ASPECT OF EVERYTHING

 

[Ambers Echo]

Oops hit send too early. I wil formulate a more senisble reply in a minute!

 

[Mrs. Jingle]

Like all things - NH has its pros and cons, the best advice I ever got was to watch videos online, and get a feel for what they are doing and why, and then magpie/cherry pick the bits you would like to see yourself doing. Mostly, it is simply rebranding of what people have done for years anyway - being sensible around their horses, giving clear boundaries, never acting in anger, being consistent etc. I'm sure we all had people in our younger days (and now) that we look at and think "wow, their horse is so well behaved" - and there is a reason. I have seen some professionals doing the most awful things in the name of NH , and yes some looked down right ugly and abusive.

The best thing I learned (not from parelli, but it was another NH person ) was to work out if a horse needed a gentle push for confidence, or whether the horse simply needed to stop and process. My old chap would explode if I pushed him when he was nervous or unsure. If I waited, he would essentially count to 10, do some deep breaths and would then be fine.

Good luck with whatever you do, and look at lots of different people, and accept that there won't be just one way of doing things.

I love this answer. Far more sensible and informative than mine. But I can never forgive what I witnessed Mr. P doing to a very shut down horse.

 

[Alibear]

I've been very wary of Parelli and wouldn't do a direct Parelli course etc. But some trainers have done the whole Parelli thing, amongst other things, and are really good all-round horsepeople and trainers. I only have a pool of one but I'm impressed by Sean Coleman and I am now doing his clinics as and when I get the chance.

 

[Rowreach]

I love this answer. Far more sensible and informative than mine. But I can never forgive what I witnessed Mr. P doing to a very shut down horse.

Same thing happened with Monty Roberts a few years ago at a demo in Cavan. An appalling display of absolutely NOT reading the horse, and performing for the audience.

A friend of mine who is a brilliant trainer, based in Devon, and who has trained with Harry Whitney for the past couple of decades, summed it up for me when she said "it's not about natural horsemanship, it's about common sense horsemanship". Actually, a lot of it is old fashioned horsemanship, that relationship between a proper nagsman(woman/person) who really gets the horse, and the horse who really trusts the person.

 

[Ambers Echo]

It depends what you mean by 'Parelli'.

If you mean incorporating some elements of what Parelli teaches, then fine. If you mean follow the Parelli Programme, honestly I wouldn’t. There are so many better ways to get that information.
Pat Parelli was a talented horseman and had a lot to teach. Unfortunately he decided to monetize everything he possibly could and he did that mainly by turning everything into a brand and insisting his way was the only way. Setting everything up into a ‘Programme' which must be followed fully. And actively cultivating slavish devotion by fans. Oh and selling unnecessary kit.

I first came across him because a friend was in the first cohort of UK instructors to go over to the US to be trained by him. She was a gifted rider and trainer, and she learned a lot but she was not allowed to blend Natural Horsemanship ™ with anything else she knew and she left the organisation and programme pretty quickly.

I next came across him when a person on my yard ‘did Parelli’ which meant the SAME wiggly rope back up, the SAME side ways this way then round over that way, finishing with cracking a whip either side. Every-Single-Day. I have never seen a more depressed horse. I wanted to yell ‘your horse gets it! You can stop now’.

The 7 Games are fine. But they are not ‘Games’ – just pretty basic aspects of handling, and they are taught by hundreds of people in way or another. I guess he made information accessible by packaging it in a fun way. But he goes well beyond just increasing accessibility, by monetizing it and insisting his way is the only way.

To ‘follow Parelli’ you generally need to buy the DVDs and proceed step wise. Which is why so many Parelli horses are robotic. They are drilled endlessly by riders who are trained not to use their own brains and minds but to ‘follow the programme’. Plus I just would not want to give the man any money!

 

[Miss_Millie]

I'm looking into more 'natural horsemanship' ideas to help with Angel and have been recommended a video about the 7 games. I'm not a huge fan of the rope wiggling to get the horse to back up (although it is effective) as the video I saw got a strong reaction, with the horse chucking his head right up. I also don't like the cult like mentality and massive monetisation of Parelli, or some of the demo videos I've seen. Plus the only person in the past who I knew who used it had an unhandleable horse!

To be specific about the 'rope wiggle', it relies on escalating pressure by 'wiggling' the rope in the horses face, which most horses find unpleasant. If they don't move backwards from a little wiggle then you start shaking the rope until they move away from it. A Parelli fanatic demonstrating it to me actually swung dangerously close to my face, saying they would get 'more serious about it' if I didn't move away from them. I was literally in the horse's shoes in that moment, and it wasn't nice.

It's fear-based training, I would not go down this route for any horse and particularly not for a horse who is already afraid of humans. There are lots of nice ways to train a horse to back up, either using non-escalating pressure or reward based training. I've taught mine to back up by mimicking my body language and then rewarding. They now back up on a voice cue.

 

[LEC]

It’s just smartly packaged marketing in easy to digest chunks. There are many roads to Rome. Personally I take bits of learning from everything and then apply it to what horse I have and what that horse needs. There is no right/wrong way with horses. Horsemanship is having a lot of tools in the box and doing things well for the benefit of the horse and to help their education for what you need.

 

[Jambarissa]

I was an early parelli person back when it was Pat doing the teaching and I loved it as did my Welsh dragon.

Don't be put off by rope wriggling and whips, they're aids and SHOULD only be used just enough to get the desired effect. I could back my mare by lifting the rope and waggling my finger above it.

However, I did look at parelli a while back and it seems to be a whole different beast now. I think Linda does most of the training and seems to like strong effects and reactions. The whole parelli club thing looks a nightmare and that alone would put me off.

If you're thinking about it see if you can find the original training materials on ebay and give it a go.

Agree with above that Ryan Rose and Warwick are great. I always found parelli worked better with high energy horses, my cobs are better with the Ryan and Warwick ways of doing things - whilst I recognise the underlying theory is the same.

 

[ycbm]

I'm sure there are good bits but I can't get past

Pat withholding water as a training device.

Pat training s horse not to be bridle shy by chaining his mouth to a foreleg at a public demo.

Linda on video teaching an owner to smack a horse under the chin with the rope clip by snaking a very long rope. Horse had only 1 eye.

A friend of mine waving her hands in horses faces to get them to move back as she steps into the stable, a trick taught her by a devotee of the training.

A whole bunch of dead eyed horses in a holding area waiting to do a demo at HOYS.
.

 

[Follysmum]

A friend and I were given some videos to watch with the games. We both fell alseep

In all honesty I never really got it, I’m sure there are good bits but I think there are better horsemanship skills without the high pitch sell.

 

[IrishMilo]

It’s just smartly packaged marketing in easy to digest chunks. There are many roads to Rome. Personally I take bits of learning from everything and then apply it to what horse I have and what that horse needs. There is no right/wrong way with horses. Horsemanship is having a lot of tools in the box and doing things well for the benefit of the horse and to help their education for what you need.

Perfecty sums it up for me.

And yes it's monetised... but why shouldn't it be? Every trainer charges for their methods in some form or another.

 

[Jellymoon]

I'm sure there are good bits but I can't get past

Pat withholding water as a training device.

Pat training s horse not to be bridle shy by chaining his mouth to a foreleg at a public demo.

Linda on video teaching an owner to smack a horse under the chin with the rope clip by snaking a very long rope. Horse had only 1 eye.

A friend of mine waving her hands in horses faces to get them to move back as she steps into the stable, a trick taught her by a devotee of the training.

A whole bunch of dead eyed horses in a holding area waiting to do a demo at HOYS.
.

Good enough reasons to boycott it altogether, imo. There probably are good bits, but they shouldn’t be getting the money.

 

[Time for Tea]

I'm sure there are good bits but I can't get past

Pat withholding water as a training device.

Pat training s horse not to be bridle shy by chaining his mouth to a foreleg at a public demo.

Linda on video teaching an owner to smack a horse under the chin with the rope clip by snaking a very long rope. Horse had only 1 eye.

A friend of mine waving her hands in horses faces to get them to move back as she steps into the stable, a trick taught her by a devotee of the training.

A whole bunch of dead eyed horses in a holding area waiting to do a demo at HOYS.
.

Good grief.

 

[9tails]

This sort of "horsemanship by numbers" is really difficult to implement by horse people with no feel or ability to read horses. I don't think it can be taught, you either have it or you don't. You can get great results with their practices, as long as you know the cues to back off.

The Parellis began to believe their own hype and went way overboard with the treatment of both their own and customer horses.

 

[saalsk]

One of the good things that Parelli did highlight, IMHO, was that horses are not the same - they act and react in different ways according to their personality and experience. It meant that there wasn't a One Size Fits All approach. I think that was something that people had lost/forgotten over the years. I saw a yearling tied to a solid metal fence, have a rug chucked over it to "teach it that rugs were fine" - the damage was not pretty. Cloth, towel, saddle cloth, small blanket and then move to rug - slowly and calmly over time - sorted. Let rug fall off around legs in a safe environment means that when it happens - and it does - horse doesn't panic and simply rolls eyes and waits for human to sort the issue.

But then the showjumper, the one eyed horse and many others, from many other Big Names.

I watched an (old) episode of Longleat with Ben Whoever and Kate Humble - they were doing training on an adult male giraffe to put his front feet on a block to have his hooves rasped - brilliant. Slowly slowly, reward, calm, repetition, gentle, allow them to get used to it etc etc.

I saw a meme not that long ago, a woman heading to heaven, and being stopped at the pearly gates. "You were doing just fine, til I saw you trying to load that horse..."

 

[Gloi]

Shhh. The people I have come across who "do parelli" seem to be ones who are afraid to ride their horse so concentrate on tormenting them from on the floor.

 

[BMA2]

My personal interaction with parelli folk and parelli horses has been...

The folk are scared to ride
The horses are incredibly rude in the stable

 

[Ambers Echo]

My personal interaction with parelli folk and parelli horses has been...

The folk are scared to ride
The horses are incredibly rude in the stable

That's certainly not always the case BUT I think is a common side effect of Horsemanship-By-Programme plus 'PNH is The One True Way', as opposed to teaching people to read horses and improve their timing and feel, and to get knowledge from a wide range of people. Also I actually think getting a better eye for what is happening and better timing is only possible with a trainer in the arena with you and our horse. Demos, clincis, videos only get you so far. So people get stuck and repeat exercises they (and their poor bored horses) have done a thousand times but actually can't correct basic issues as they are not learning generalisable horsemanship skills.

 

[Hobo2]

I’m getting in on this early before all the naysayers.

No, it isn’t all bad at all, if it is taught well it’s great - just often it isn’t.

I have a big spooky (now retired) pony - my parelli teacher (also now retired) took us from scary cats to being able to do a dressage test bareback in a halter.

The bond I built with the horse was also amazing.

It’s all about really understanding why you are doing it and patience and timing.

Look at The Horse Place on fb or David Lichman for examples of it being done well and sympathetically. Obviously as with all
horse sports lots of examples of it done badly available … and I don’t think I would let Pat Parelli near me horse!!

David Lichman is a awesome quiet horseman watching him riding my old instructors talented but reactive top dressage horse in a western saddle and then doing cattle cutting was incredible. Instructor uses what she learnt from him a lot in stressful or excitable situation. I also think that any natural horsemanship done badly is terrible for the poor horse.

 

[Pippity]

I rode at a Parelli trekking centre once, in New Zealand. My horse seemed absolutely shut down and uninterested in the world, until I accidentally gave him 'standard' English-style cues, at which point he perked up and became a nice ride. (I was the only person on the ride with any experience, so I was given free rein to wander off where I wanted, as long as I was within sight of the main ride.) Apparently that shut down, half asleep thing is what they're aiming for?

However, the horses were all ridden in headcollars, mostly by absolute beginners; they seemed sound and in good condition; and none of them had any qualms about wading through strong-flowing water up to their bellies. And mine was perfectly happy to go off on his own with me and do our own thing. The ride leaders did all carry the official branded Parelli Carrot Stick, which looked exactly like a dressage whip to me. I'm still not sure what the difference is, because they seemed to use it pretty much how I'd use a dressage whip.

I suspect that all horses want are calm, kind, consistent cues, and they don't especially care what label is slapped on them.

 

[dougpeg]

My philosophy is take the bits I like from different approaches and disregard the rest. Horses for courses and all that. The more tools you have in your bag, and the more open you are to different approaches can only be a good thing.

 

[blitznbobs]

Parelli is just a monetised version of classical training … with a different stick …

It’s as old as the hills and great but I dont like the cultish element and stick to the Portuguese and Spanish versions myself (which uses kit I already had ) (well almost but bought a Portuguese cavesson as I really like how the don’t spin like the British version)