Jean Francois Pignon...

S

spotty_pony

...
Joined
29 July 2005
Messages
12,552
Visit site
I saw him at Olympia.

Although I enjoyed his display and the horses were well behaved, I can't help but think about how much he must have had to use that lunge whip when training them.
crazy.gif


I have heard mixed views about him. What are your opinions?
 
didn't see him at Olympia but have seen him previously, what i notice is that the horses so often have their ears back and sometimes some of them appear unsound.
 
i think they look sour! no doubt well trained and he is a horseman and good jockey but the ponios dont look like they enjoy it that much. lots of previous comments/threads to this
 
I think he is an excellent trainer-I have no objection to him training with negative reinforcement as obviously it works! Sending 5/6 horses away to lie down is a fairly amazing trick-I do agree I ahve once seen an unsound looking horse. And they have their ears back, but so do a fair few horses in work
 
Yes I agree - the little chestnut pony looked lame to me!

And Caribb ... negative reinforcement is ok to a certain extent, but for all anyone knows he could be thrashing those poor horses...
 
who knows, but i love watching him and the little shettie was just sooooo cute!!! and he was just giving him loads of scratches and cuddles
 
for all anyone knows-exactly..for all anyone knows.. he could not be.
I think it is refreshing to get away from pussyfooting around-I would guess it is no more than your average sj/eventer training methods
 
It looked to me like he was just using the stick to direct the horses. Also they all looked like they really loved him and enjoyed getting attention from him. I saw the ears back as more of a concentration thing then anger/unhappiness, think they were all vying for his attention and got a bit annoyed if others got in the way. But who knows!
 
don't like it...
the horses had their ears back, heading swinging, tails swishing and didn't look happy at all.

and also a bit too whip happy for me.
 
There's been a really long post a bit earlier on about this performance, some good points of view on there.

I thought it "looked" a bit uncomfortable because they had their ears back but thought it was more them being unhappy at being so close to one another as opposed to what they had to do. When they were spread out and apart from each other their ears were forward and much happier.
 
I saw them too, but I agree- who knows! Some of them did look really grumpy, but that could have just been the nature of the horses, and I guess that if they weren't happy they wouldn't want to behave for him?!

?
 
My not-very-horsey goddaughter didn't enjoy it at all, telling her Mum he seemed too whip-happy ('he was flicking it around their faces, Mum!') and I didn't think the horses looked particularly happy. Surely it's just circus tricks by another name?
 
I've always been in 2 minds about this. To me the horses look unhappy. Their ears are right back and their gait seems stilted. But there is no doubt that they trust him enough to lay flat in an arena. I can't imagine any training that can overcome a horse's basic instinct to such an extent without trust. But that said to me they look beaten. I don't go to animal circuses on ethical grounds and this is a bit close to a circus to me.

But a really close freind whose views I respect is really into parelli. (Which I am not!). She says that when horses look like that they are concentrating. She saw the whole thing as a fantastic display of join up and partnership.

I didn't.

I guess there are two sides to every view. I'm not comfortable with it. But I do trust that the horses are unlikely to have been actively mistreated. Even with my non parelli background the show was impressive.
 
To me, it looked like they were putting their ears back at one another, to maintain the herd heirachy when moving around. At other times, when they were not close together, their ears were not back. The slightly smaller grey was clearly the herd leader of the horses. The horses were at least communicating and behaving actually quite normally for horses while doing some unusual manoevures.

As for the use of the lunge whips, its no different to holding one when you are lunging or loose schooling surely? So I guess its there to reinforce this during the act and as a training aid. After all, he's not riding them, he doesn't use leg aids.

When horses are together in a herd, they often don't look particularly happy either. Depending on the horses, they seem to do nothing but make sour faces at each other, have their ears back and threaten to kick. Horses don't speak so body language is how they communicate.
 
Like hh says, my three in the field have their ears back a lot - head mare saying gerrout my way and underponies saying OK, but I don't have to like it.
I think hes amazing.
 
I am totally astounded at what other people saw!

What I saw was normal horse communication for horses that were so close to each other. The ear flicking, tail swishing, etc is not one tenth of what mine do to each other what free in the field. I wouldn't for a moment think that these horses were unhappy.

Unhappy horses, frightened, subdued or cowered horses would take the first opportunity to either run away or kick him in the face...instead they all worked at liberty.

The whip was used as a targeting aid. This is a bog standard technique in operant conditioning (although clearly his results are not bog standard, but quite exceptional!). It has nothing to do with negative reinforcement either. Negative reinforcement is the punishment of unwanted behaviour through a negative punishment, e.g. if the horses broke ranks he would use the whip to hurt them so they would not do it again. He used the whip to touch them in different places, which is a cue for behaviours, and to indicate where the horses should place themselves, again a cue.
 
I thought they were just concentrating and I didnt think he actually used the whip - it was more of a directive pointer than a whip. I agree that the little chestnut was not sound - but he also did not look unhappy. I think you come back to the problem of unsoundness being acceptable to some people at some levels of work. There have been a lot of posts on that subject too!! He is not ridden and whilst I personally think any work with unsoundness is not acceptable lots of people will hack a 1/10 lame horse who has long term problems....
I love to watch him as I think he has a relationship with them and they trust him. However I will keep an open mind in the future..
 
[ QUOTE ]
I suggest you don't watch any of the Parelli displays or DVD's in that case, because that's basically what that is

[/ QUOTE ]

I actually ABHOR Mr Parelli..

The man is a charlatan.
 
[ QUOTE ]
Oh well then we have one thing in common, perhaps the only thing but it's a start eh!
wink.gif


[/ QUOTE ]

I think you might find we have great deal in common.







How is that fairy with a tree up her arse?
wink.gif
wink.gif
 
Not sure I entirely agree with the circus trick comparison but I conceed there are similarities. Is riding or using horses for competition or monetary gain any better or worse? I enjoyed the show and prefered to see JFP than for instance the cosacks who (I have on good authoritiy from someone behind the scenes when they were performing) did not show much consideration for their horses.
I am not defending JFP as I have not watched him training or caring for his horses. As I said before I will keep an open mind..... I am not keen on circuses as the animals do not usually work at liberty - but have in all honesty never watched one so again - I may be wrong
tongue.gif
 
I don't really like it. I would lean on the side of it being parelli training rather than negative reinforcement, but you can't really be sure. To me, it really does look like circus work. Don't object to horses doing circus work in principle, but it is impossible to tell who is training kindly behind the scenes. I learned my lesson on that one after the glowing article Horse and Pony ran on Mary Chipperfield back in the day. Her horses didn't *look* frightened or beaten. (And whether he is using nice methods or not, I don't find it pleasant when he flicks the whip in their faces, even though it doesnt look like theyre scared. If it is just a cue, I would have picked a different one).

My other objection to it though is that its a bit boring now. Everything just takes a bit long to set up, and goes on a bit long once its going. I was really impressed when he first started, but now there is so much more access to people like Monty Roberts or Parelli, who are more about the relationship, and people doing more exciting circus style work like the devils horsemen. For me he falls between the gap a bit now, being neither one thing nor the other.
 
I know nothing about how these horses are trained or cared for, but I'd be interested to know what is the difference between this "circus" display of horses trained to work at liberty & a display of horses trained to work in a certain way ridden e.g. the Met Office display (with it's rings of fire) or a dressage display (with music) that makes it so ethically objectionable to some.
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Top