Natural Horseman - Has anyone else used one?

Jasmin2013

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Hi All

Newbie here sorry.

I'm interested in others experiences with natural horsemanship trainers, as I used one back in the summer and couldn't be happier with the results.

My quirky mare was very hard to load in any type of trailer or lorry, she was extremely dangerous trying to load with rearing and striking out. I tried everything feeding her in there, putting it in her field you name it I tried it.

Heard about a local natural horseman and thought what have I got to lose. He understood my mare straight off and I hadn't even said how severe her issue was.

He worked with her on the ground for ages and on the second attempt got her loaded, I was so impressed as I'd had so much trouble with her. Then it was my turn god did he make me work for my money, he taught me for a good couple of hours the techniques he uses and how to make myself top of the herd.

All in all an amazing experience and it was so un-stressful and relaxed, he gave me homework to do as well and point blank refused to come back as he had faith in me. Since that day we've had one hiccup but she was in season.

I'd love to hear any other experiences.
 

Tash88

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My horse and I are currently working with Jason Webb, although I wouldn't say that he was a natural horsemanship trainer. He practices what he calls Australian Horsemanship, although I am not sure whether that is a name that he has given to what/who has inspired him or an actual term, if that makes sense. It is early days (two private lessons and lots of practice so far) and it will take a while as my horse has some difficult and ingrained habits stemming from events before I bought him, but so far so good. At the moment we have gone pretty much back to basics and are dealing with forwarness and stopping him from napping, and dealing with it when he does! First lesson was groundwork and second lesson was ridden, lots of information to take in but it is incredbly rewarding and my horse has come on a lot in the last month since my first lesson.
 

Llee94

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My mum used Vanessa Bee to help break in our youngster about 10 years ago. She was fab and my mum's pony really responded to the methods.
 

stilltrying

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Same as Tash88 I've used Jason Webb in the past. Couldn't recommend highly enough, although i think he's quite famous (expensive!) now! Different approach to what i'd been taught but made sense and more importantly, it worked.
 

fburton

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I'm not sure that there's really anything called "natural Horsemanship" surely its just good horsemanship?
NH does have different methods and explanations for why things work. Some practitioners are good horsemen and others aren't, and I definitely wouldn't say that NH necessarily meant good horsemanship.
 

EQUIDAE

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It's all marketing - there are very few instructors promoting the fact that they do groundwork lessons, but they do. Most calm, experience people can deal with issue - it just involves doing it in a different manner to how the owner is
 

Jasmin2013

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Several calm experienced people tried to help my girl which resulted in broken fingers and being told to give up trying to take her anywhere as it'll never happen.

I myself am very experienced with 25 years experience under my belt, for her it was being about the leader of the herd and me being that leader not her and even people with experience don't know all the techniques or best ways of doing this.

One experience person told me to beat her into the lorry over and over again (which of course I didn't do)
 

Tash88

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I'm not sure that there's really anything called "natural Horsemanship" surely its just good horsemanship?

Agreed, and this is Jason Webb's approach as opposed to NH, which really isn't aways good and seems to be increasingly based on quick fixes (went to a Monty Roberts demo recently and wasn't impressed) and putting on a show.
 

fburton

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So it might be more accurate to say "surely it's [NH] is just good showmanship"?

Well, there may be a grain of truth in that. However, I do think that "natural horsemanship" has something useful to offer that is different from e.g. traditional horsemanship - but that's not the same as saying that NH is always better than traditional, which I certainly don't believe to be the case. In the end, it comes down to the experience and skill of the person dealing with horse, how well he or she can read horses, etc. and not their belief system. Imo.
 

thatsmygirl

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I agree with oldie48,
I just class it as " good horsemanship" but by god I see some awful handling/ horsemanship day on day by so called experienced owners ( not aimed at you OP as I don't know you, in my local area I'm talking about)
Iv worked for years after racing buying so called " problem" horses ranging from every possible problem going, my first point of call is to stand back and watch the owner with the horse and within minutes I know where the problem is and know how easy/hard it will be to get him back on track. They are not problem horses but misguided though bad handling and " lack of horsemanship" I always go for a 50.50 relationship with the horses and believe both parties ( owner/horse) should carry a equal share in responsibility and iv not had a horse yet that hasn't come right very quickly. I don't do it anymore as iv moved into the nutrition side of things but I am looking for a project for this coming summer.
I do believe you either have good horsemanship naturally or you don't. I can read so called " natural horseman type books" and its surprising how much you actually carry out normally its just some " parties" have put a name on general common sense and making a killing.
Iv been out to quite a few local people to work with "both" parties ( that's important) and how other people standing back watching can not see the issues is beyond me and most have given their views as most livery yards do!
I am very surprised locally how many people resort to brute force, its purely bad horsemanship and shows their lack of knowledge. So to sum up in my mind " natural horsemanship= common sense.
 

thatsmygirl

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I agree with oldie48,
I just class it as " good horsemanship" but by god I see some awful handling/ horsemanship day on day by so called experienced owners ( not aimed at you OP as I don't know you, in my local area I'm talking about)
Iv worked for years after racing buying so called " problem" horses ranging from every possible problem going, my first point of call is to stand back and watch the owner with the horse and within minutes I know where the problem is and know how easy/hard it will be to get him back on track. They are not problem horses but misguided though bad handling and " lack of horsemanship" I always go for a 50.50 relationship with the horses and believe both parties ( owner/horse) should carry a equal share in responsibility and iv not had a horse yet that hasn't come right very quickly. I don't do it anymore as iv moved into the nutrition side of things but I am looking for a project for this coming summer.
I do believe you either have good horsemanship naturally or you don't. I can read so called " natural horseman type books" and its surprising how much you actually carry out normally its just some " parties" have put a name on general common sense and making a killing.
Iv been out to quite a few local people to work with "both" parties ( that's important) and how other people standing back watching can not see the issues is beyond me and most have given their views as most livery yards do!
I am very surprised locally how many people resort to brute force, its purely bad horsemanship and shows their lack of knowledge. So to sum up in my mind " natural horsemanship= common sense.
 

thatsmygirl

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I dunno - is the stuff NH says about dominance really common sense?

Dominance in my mind has no port of call within horses and is not common sense, more lack off it.
Some of these practices I wouldn't even say, they have common sence ( not going to say the dreadful name) but seem to make money out of their ways but those to me aren't natural horsemanship
 

Makemineacob

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I disagree about it being able to be called "common sense", if everyone in the world had the same level of common sense then the world would be a very harmonious place to be. To call it common sense means that it is assumed that everyone has a certain level of "taken for granted" knowledge.

I think we can all agree that we see and have seen examples of sheer stupidity (around horses or not) that we would all assume should be common sense to never do a particular thing. I'm a huge fan of "natural horsemanship" but agree there are many people who seem to fall under this category who I wouldn't entertain their training methods.
 

Orangehorse

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I don't know what exactly you mean by "Natural Horsemanship." Monty Roberts is doing an evening demo, his RAs don't do the quick fix. I asked one not so long ago if horses are better handled and more sensitively treated, thanks to the introduction of "NH" but she said sadly not, there were still a lot of misunderstood horses around and they were still having to sweep up after other people's mistakes. They can do an awful lot of good and lots of it is how the owner handles the horse, but some horses are unfixable.
 

Makemineacob

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I can't recall who said it but I loved the phrase a "good horseman" said in that he never went out to help people with problem horses, he went out to treat horses with people problems.
 

Feival

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My friends have used Shady to back their quirky Friesian and Morgan youngsters. He worked wonders with them and has a Facebook page called Shady Horsemanship.
 

teapot

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I disagree about it being able to be called "common sense", if everyone in the world had the same level of common sense then the world would be a very harmonious place to be. To call it common sense means that it is assumed that everyone has a certain level of "taken for granted" knowledge.

I think we can all agree that we see and have seen examples of sheer stupidity (around horses or not) that we would all assume should be common sense to never do a particular thing. I'm a huge fan of "natural horsemanship" but agree there are many people who seem to fall under this category who I wouldn't entertain their training methods.


Good horsemanship to me includes having common sense (and we all know it's not as common as people think it is) because I think good horsemanship/natural horsemanship means working with the horse, not forcing it, dominating it or playing stupid games.

I'm not talking here about the sheer stupidity of some people that we all see on a regular basis, or assuming everyone has a specific level of knowledge, ie that type of common sense. I'm talking about those who can apply a bit of common and lateral thinking to a specific problem and working with the horse. For example those who recognise that an owner forcing a horse to work to A,B,C is causing the problem, and that simply asking the owner to consider the possibility of doing B,C,A will solve the issue and make everyone happier.

Knowledge doesn't automatically equal common sense either. I know people with oodles of knowledge but lack a inch of common sense!
 

Makemineacob

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Good horsemanship to me includes having common sense (and we all know it's not as common as people think it is) because I think good horsemanship/natural horsemanship means working with the horse, not forcing it, dominating it or playing stupid games.

I'm not talking here about the sheer stupidity of some people that we all see on a regular basis, or assuming everyone has a specific level of knowledge, ie that type of common sense. I'm talking about those who can apply a bit of common and lateral thinking to a specific problem and working with the horse. For example those who recognise that an owner forcing a horse to work to A,B,C is causing the problem, and that simply asking the owner to consider the possibility of doing B,C,A will solve the issue and make everyone happier.

Knowledge doesn't automatically equal common sense either. I know people with oodles of knowledge but lack a inch of common sense!

Absolutely! It's an absolute pleasure to see it done properly. We have a chap locally called Guy Robertson and he is one hell of a "good horseman", regularly get the opportunity to go and watch him at coffee mornings and it's inspiring.
 

DJ

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Absolutely! It's an absolute pleasure to see it done properly. We have a chap locally called Guy Robertson and he is one hell of a "good horseman", regularly get the opportunity to go and watch him at coffee mornings and it's inspiring.

Yup, I`ve seen him work a couple of times too ... As you say, one heck of a good horseman :)
 

NZJenny

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I remember before we had NH, and can remember my first introduction to it. The biggest difference for me is that NH taught us to read the horses body language a whole lot more than we were used to.

What you do with that information then comes down to good horsemanship. Or marketing.
 

fburton

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I remember before we had NH, and can remember my first introduction to it. The biggest difference for me is that NH taught us to read the horses body language a whole lot more than we were used to.
Yup, that's one of the good things about it. Good horsepeople could do that regardless, but NH started to teach people to be more aware in a systematic way.
 

wench

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I've been in touch with a couple before. They are marginally useful but I have found them generally a waste of money
 
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