Interesting to hear how the Monty bandwagon has developed. IMHO, he was more of a horseman and less of a publicist when he first came over. I volunteered the late chestnut git, then a genuinely unbacked 3yo, as a demo horse when Horse and Hound first brought Monty over in 1989.
The late chestnut git (TB/sec D) is the horse being ridden in canter in the main photo under the H&H banner, and also in pic 2 (horse advances) and pic 9 (long reining).
Why did I volunteer him? He was even then a brash overconfident horse with thuggish tendencies, and I decided that if any horse could cope with all this razzmatazz, he could. He behaved like a bloody lamb, he was putty in Monty’s hands. I would never have taken my other TB/sec D, a sensitive soul who would have hated it. It did the late chestnut git no harm at all.
Ones of the other 3yos for starting was a really tricky number. Monty did not try to get him backed on the first day, he asked the owners to stay over for two more days as he need more time to work with him. That was the 1989 Monty, maybe the 2019 Monty is a victim of his own hype, I don’t like the sound of his current approach to the demos at all.
There was no trying out the horses beforehand either then. I was with mine all the time at the stables and in full charge of him, except for when he was being used in public in the indoor arena.