Parelli's horse, Magic

[Pale Rider]

So Tinypony from your staunch defence of PP over the past few months, you now come out on this unknown trainer, from the sounds of it has more empathy with horses than his Holy Highness.

UNKNOWN!!!!

 

[Tinypony]

I kinda intended inaccurate to be included in the description of unfair.

I should keep my nose out when people are disagreeing on this forum, it is a bad habit of mine to speak up as it is often not received well

Apologies Naturally, I wasn't meaning to snap at you, just shows how the written word can come over completely differently to what's going on in our minds. x

 

[Pale Rider]

It's suprised me somewhat, that lots of folk who post on here are obviously unaware of some of the, what I would consider, top of the range trainers who come from the Natural Horsemanship school of thought.

I'm thinking of people like Dave Stuart, Aimee Brimhall McCord, Phillip Nye, Ingela Larsson Smith, Jonathon Field, Karen Rohlf, Buck Brannaman, Mark Rashid all these that I have mentioned have to a greater or lesser extent have worked with Parelli or with people who have influenced Parelli but have now gone off to do their own thing. If you look at the antecedence of nearly all the NH trainers today, they have much in common as far as their own mentors are concerned. It is after all a fairly small pond.

Perhaps the influence of people like Monty Roberts and Pat Parelli have had too much of a percieved influence on Natural Horsemanship in the UK and have caused a polarization of opinion.

When people start talking about the Natural Horsemanship movement and preface their remarks with, 'I don't know much about...' I tend to dismiss anything that follows fairly quickly. I do though find it interesting when different trainers are compaired and contrasted by people who do know something about the subject.

For my part a massive disservice has been done to the NH movement in the UK when it is the last chance saloon for lots of horses which are presented as 'problem'. Many trainers have to start from a negative base, rather than concentrating on starting horses with the method.

My view is that the established trainers have made it somewhat exclusive due to the cost of it all, and the pupils ability to pay is now appears to be more important than ability which is a shame.

 

[Tinypony]

We're part of a small pond PR. It's easy to forget sometimes that the trainers that are such a part of what we know mean nothing to most horse owners in the UK. I think it's nice that people show an interest sometimes, even if they do think we're probably bunny huggers getting walked over by our horses.

 

[Pale Rider]

We're part of a small pond PR. It's easy to forget sometimes that the trainers that are such a part of what we know mean nothing to most horse owners in the UK. I think it's nice that people show an interest sometimes, even if they do think we're probably bunny huggers getting walked over by our horses.

Lol

 

[xxMozlarxx]

We're part of a small pond PR. It's easy to forget sometimes that the trainers that are such a part of what we know mean nothing to most horse owners in the UK. I think it's nice that people show an interest sometimes, even if they do think we're probably bunny huggers getting walked over by our horses.

I dont get walked over...I use a dually halter!

 

[debsg]

I think I've been pretty careful about what I said about Pat P, Phil Nye and Magic. Phil has not a lot to say on the subject, although he will of course talk about Magic's story and her time with him. Pat appears to be "economical with the truth", which is his perogative. My personal opinion is that I think it's a shame to airbrush Phil's undeniable contribution to the mare's training from history. That this has happened is apparent from the number of Parelli students who think they know Magic's story, but have never heard the name Phillip Nye.
It is also my personal opinion that all in all of the coverage I have seen of Pat with her she has never looked as relaxed as she did with Phil. I also shed a tear at the end of the video as mentioned. But that's all just how I feel about it all personally, it makes me emotional, that's got nothing to do with what Phil thinks.
It's sort of wierd and lovely that the few bits of video footage of Phil Nye working with horses, including Magic, are treasured and shared by people. What a shame we can't see what he is doing now with his stallion, Steve tells me it is very different and quite amazing.
I drove round the country with Dave Stewart for a week once, that was great fun!

Kind of away from the point and totally irrelevant, but I am very jealous of you Tinypony, for having the gorgeous Dave for a WHOLE WEEK!! He is rather fanciable, haha.
My friend and I took her two boys up to Dave's place in Wales, when he was teamed up with Charlotte Dennis (the short lived Equine Ethology)
The horses stayed for six weeks, then we went back for a weekend to work with them alongside Dave. Early in the morning we went out and watched him in the indoor school, working a youngster. He is soooooo quiet with a horse! The whole session radiated calm and was fascinating to watch.
I have on of my friend's boys at my yard now, he is 7 and is the only gelding in a herd with 6 mares, including my two. Lovely laid back horse, testament to Dave's sterling work.
Also I greatly admire Buck Brannaman (anyone here seen the 'Buck' documentary?) and Mark Rashid.
I am an ex Parelli student, drifted away as lots of it didn't sit well with me. That said, I have seen PP do some beautiful stuff with horses. Not so keen on Linda, can't quite put my finger on it but to me she seems insincere. Maybe I'm wrong............I don't know her personally, just a gut feeling from what I've seen.

 

[Tinypony]

Kind of away from the point and totally irrelevant, but I am very jealous of you Tinypony, for having the gorgeous Dave for a WHOLE WEEK!! He is rather fanciable, haha.
My friend and I took her two boys up to Dave's place in Wales, when he was teamed up with Charlotte Dennis (the short lived Equine Ethology)
The horses stayed for six weeks, then we went back for a weekend to work with them alongside Dave. Early in the morning we went out and watched him in the indoor school, working a youngster. He is soooooo quiet with a horse! The whole session radiated calm and was fascinating to watch.
I have on of my friend's boys at my yard now, he is 7 and is the only gelding in a herd with 6 mares, including my two. Lovely laid back horse, testament to Dave's sterling work.
Also I greatly admire Buck Brannaman (anyone here seen the 'Buck' documentary?) and Mark Rashid.
I am an ex Parelli student, drifted away as lots of it didn't sit well with me. That said, I have seen PP do some beautiful stuff with horses. Not so keen on Linda, can't quite put my finger on it but to me she seems insincere. Maybe I'm wrong............I don't know her personally, just a gut feeling from what I've seen.

I'm organising 4 clinics and a demo this year with Steve Halfpenny. Once described to me by someone who's ridden with Buck as "Buck Brannaman with customer care". I can't wait to pack up my car and head off at the end of next week to spectate the first clinic. Then the week after it will be pack up the pony and we both go to the clinic.

I'm an ex-Parelli student as well, I'm not keen on it these days, but at the time it seemed the best option out there. I think you can learn something useful from most people.

Had a good laugh with Dave, he's a real gent. We had a day out in Rochester when we had some "down time". I'm sure you can imagine the reactions as he strode along the Esplanade in the sunshine eating ice creams! How tall is he? Well over 6 ft anyway, and that's without the boots and hat.

I thought that the great thing about that brief Equine Ethology period was that they gave us a chance to see Ray Hunt in action. That was fascinating.

 

[Pale Rider]

Kind of away from the point and totally irrelevant, but I am very jealous of you Tinypony, for having the gorgeous Dave for a WHOLE WEEK!! He is rather fanciable, haha.
My friend and I took her two boys up to Dave's place in Wales, when he was teamed up with Charlotte Dennis (the short lived Equine Ethology)
The horses stayed for six weeks, then we went back for a weekend to work with them alongside Dave. Early in the morning we went out and watched him in the indoor school, working a youngster. He is soooooo quiet with a horse! The whole session radiated calm and was fascinating to watch.
I have on of my friend's boys at my yard now, he is 7 and is the only gelding in a herd with 6 mares, including my two. Lovely laid back horse, testament to Dave's sterling work.
Also I greatly admire Buck Brannaman (anyone here seen the 'Buck' documentary?) and Mark Rashid.
I am an ex Parelli student, drifted away as lots of it didn't sit well with me. That said, I have seen PP do some beautiful stuff with horses. Not so keen on Linda, can't quite put my finger on it but to me she seems insincere. Maybe I'm wrong............I don't know her personally, just a gut feeling from what I've seen.

I too have seen quite a bit of Dave Stuart last year and my admiration grows evey time I watch him.

Buck's film is excellent.

As for Pat and Linda, as you say Pat does do some magical (no pun intended) stuff, Linda has learned everything in an analytical, text book style which doesn't take into account the major ingredient of any sort of work with horse training which is feel. If you don't have much in the way of feel to start with it really must be difficult to learn.

I keep abreast of all the NH trainers and watch what is going on as I feel the root of all the techniques is common and despite the individual 'spin' that may be put on, it's compatable.

 

[Pale Rider]

I'm organising 4 clinics and a demo this year with Steve Halfpenny. Once described to me by someone who's ridden with Buck as "Buck Brannaman with customer care". I can't wait to pack up my car and head off at the end of next week to spectate the first clinic. Then the week after it will be pack up the pony and we both go to the clinic.

I'm an ex-Parelli student as well, I'm not keen on it these days, but at the time it seemed the best option out there. I think you can learn something useful from most people.

Had a good laugh with Dave, he's a real gent. We had a day out in Rochester when we had some "down time". I'm sure you can imagine the reactions as he strode along the Esplanade in the sunshine eating ice creams! How tall is he? Well over 6 ft anyway, and that's without the boots and hat.

I thought that the great thing about that brief Equine Ethology period was that they gave us a chance to see Ray Hunt in action. That was fascinating.

I'd be interested to know when and where Steve Halfpenny will be, is this in addition to whats on the Silversand agenda?

 

[Tinypony]

I'd be interested to know when and where Steve Halfpenny will be, is this in addition to whats on the Silversand agenda?

I'll pm you, don't want the thread to vanish because of advertising. That's why I don't mention the Silversand stuff very often.

 

[Pale Rider]

I'll pm you, don't want the thread to vanish because of advertising. That's why I don't mention the Silversand stuff very often.

Cheers.

 

[debsg]

Tinypony, please will you post feedback of the clinic? Unfortunately we do not currently have horse transport, so my learning is done via the internet, books and dvd, occasional spectating and, of course, my horses
I think I have seen Steve Halfpenny working. Did he do one of those 'Road to the horse' type things?

 

[xxMozlarxx]

Was that close to going on 1 of the Steve Halfpenny clinics, no doubt i will regret not doing it. Takes a bit of confidence to head off alone for 3 days to someone you've never worked with and after the bad experience I had with Perry Wood

 

[Tinypony]

Surprisingly enough, I wouldn't recommend that anyone turn up to ride at a clinic (any clinic) unless they had a bit of an idea about what was going to happen. That's what speccie places are for, so that people can come along to watch, listen, ask questions and talk to others at the clinics. It's a good way to find out if you'd want to take your horse. Newbies need a bit of moral support as well, I've managed to set all of my clinics up this year so that as well as Steve teaching there will be one of his associates in the background ready to support anyone who needs a bit more help, or is new to it. They are also good people to sit next to, although speccies should never be afraid to chip in and ask the trainer for some help.
If people have never seen Steve, or any trainer, teach, then I strongly suggest that they take whatever time off the need to be there on day 1. You need to be there at the start, to hear from the riders where they are starting, and to get some understanding of where the trainer has their starting point. The numer of times I've explained this to newbies, and they've insisted they can only come on the last day... While it's fine for them to do that, it's a bit of a waste of money because so much has happened before. They've got no idea on where the horse and human started and how they've reached the point they have. I suppose I did groan a bit, on the last day of a clinic, when a new speccie turned to me and said "Have they done Join Up yet?".
So Mozlar, if you fancy coming to watch send me a pm. Steve's taking at least a year off after this.
Different trainers will appeal to different people. I've been to a couple with Perry Wood, and while he isn't teaching what I want to learn, several of my friends are thrilled with what he does. The one who has blown me away so far this year is Mark Rashid - talk about understated! However, he wouldn't commit to coming back to teach horsemanship again... full stop. So catch them while you can.

 

[Tinypony]

I must admit, I'm hoping that Echo Brave will return to this thread to substantiate her comments earlier on this thread.

 

[xxMozlarxx]

Hi, thanks, I would have wanted to come with my horse if I came and to the whole thing ,unfortunately it's just a bit too close to another clinic me and eldest daughter have just been on so too much overload for my horse really.
The main thing for me is to work around people who don't bring their ego to what they teach, some trainers start to believe their own press I think.

 

[Tinypony]

Some of the naysayers go on about Steve having a big ego, but then they seem to accuse pretty much everyone they disagree with of being ego-driven. In his case I can't see it. )
Yes, he did a Way of the Horse thing at Equitana a couple of years back. Got slated by some for taking things too slowly. The horses were three year olds and he took his two back home with him to give them a good start and find them homes.
We've gone a long way from PP, Phil and Magic, but nice chatting!

 

[Echo Bravo]

Sorry but to me these people are unknown, but there again I no longer follow NH as the PP's,put me off big time and the rest that I have read about and yes bought their books of wisdom, all comes down to common sense and how you treat/look after your horse. But it seems to me people want a quick fix, instead of giving the animal/and owner time to ajust to each other. But what the hell do I know after over 40 years of owning and breeding horses,still on a learning curve.

 

[Tinypony]

Would you like to back up your two recent posts having an inaccurate dig at me for being a Parelli supporter Echo Brave? Some quotes with relevant links for context would do it. Or did you get me muddled up with someone else? In which case no worries and forget it.

Of course none of us spring from the womb blessed with this magic "common sense" we build it up from various sources as we grow up and learn from others. It's the same with horsemanship, everyone learns it somewhere, even the intuitive "old horsemen" that some people witter on about - they learnt from others. The only "nh" type horseman I know of who seems to claim to have made it up himself is Monty Roberts. Who of course went into the wild, as a child, commissioned with the important and financially critical task of providing the horses for an annual rodeo... and devised a system of his own by doing nothing more than observing wild horses. He never noticed his dad and other western horsemen practising hooking up with horses, he watched wild horses and invented it afresh. All the others I've seen and read about credit their roots and the people who influenced them.

 

[jeeve]

Yes, I suppose you could say I'm a Philip Nye fan, or maybe he's someone I met and whose company I really enjoyed. I went to Australia to do some training with Steve Halfpenny several times, and while at his place was fortunate enough to be able to spectate Phil teaching. He's an intuitive horseman and an all round good bloke. He was a Parelli instructor back in the days when they were chosen for the skills they already had, rather than being trained up to a template. His teaching was so different that I once asked one of the senior Parelli people why he was still in the organisation, because Pat isn't always that tolerant of people who don't follow his pattern. I was told that Phil was one of a kind and Pat would never want to get rid of him. Shortly after Phil left of his own accord, along with many other instructors who wanted to develop their skills differently. I've got an invite to go and visit Phil and his wife Jenny at their place... but goodness knows if I'll ever be able to afford the trip to Aus again! In fact, he invited me because my OH is great at fixing things and he said that could come in handy round the farm. ;-))

So, Magic turned up at a clinic where Pat was teaching, he took her on and left her with Phil, who trained her (up to old PNH level 4 sort of level). Then, for whatever reason, Pat decided he wanted her back. At the end of one of Phil's videos there is a heartbreaking scene where he is riding her bareback and in a rope halter in a park, with the great ocean liner in the background that will take her away. Legend has it that Pat was working her at liberty in the arena practising for I think it was Equitana when she saw Phil outside and galloped towards him and tried to jump out... that might be legend of course, these tales do grow...

Phil doesn't really have a lot to say about the Magic thing himself. I think maybe he's secure enough in himself that he doesn't feel the need to have to comment. He's not interested in publicity, teaches rarely, and although he's doing breathtaking stuff with his big warmblood stallion he's not putting out any recordings of it. Sometimes a clip of him appears on You Tube, but he doesn't want that and the get taken down.

In my opinion, Roberts and Parelli aren't even on the same page as Phil. Even the wonderful Mark Rashid doesn't have the same instinctive way with horses, and the unquenchable sunny outlook that Phil shows whenever he is around them.

Pat definitely benefitted from taking a horse that had been trained to a high level by Phil when he took Magic back. That much is evidenced on videos that some of us still own.

More here http://itsaboutthehorse.myfastforum.org/sutra48524.php

Absolutely agree with what you have said Phil is fantastic, it is a shame that nothing much is heard from him. i have some of his videos - none of Magic, but could never forget the goodbye video at the dock.

Phil is 1 in a million - there really are not that many people with his gift. I really think PNH took a huge step back when it lost the Aussie instructors from the program. We are lucky that many of them are still involved with horses and training, and have much to offer.

 

[xxMozlarxx]

Some of the naysayers go on about Steve having a big ego, but then they seem to accuse pretty much everyone they disagree with of being ego-driven. In his case I can't see it. )
Yes, he did a Way of the Horse thing at Equitana a couple of years back. Got slated by some for taking things too slowly. The horses were three year olds and he took his two back home with him to give them a good start and find them homes.
We've gone a long way from PP, Phil and Magic, but nice chatting!

That's how good conversations evolve I guess. I hadn't heard any
talk of big ego in relation to Steve and I have a friend who has done lots of work with him. I know he did Equitana along with Chad Brady, he continued with the horse Chad used I understand as well.
Echo Bravo... another who makes these sweeping statements about NH with seemingly little knowledge. I can't think of anything less 'quick fix' than NH, it's something that needs constant and consistent use and practise, it's just training. What you see in a demo is just that...a demo. Some issues can be fixed relatively quickly but most not.

 

[Tinypony]

Ah yes, that's right, that's how he came to take two horses home isn't it? And I thought I got tempted by appealing cats... !
I really think it's a shame that, those of us who have seen the vids, could have our vision of what Phil Nye does fixed at that period in his horsemanship. They are brilliant and inspirational to watch, at least for me, but I know he's changed greatly since then. Even when I last saw him, which was I think about 2002 maybe, there were only glimpses of the Parelli instructor he used to be. It's the same with many of the ex Parelli instructors I've seen, once liberated they change a lot. Which can only be good in my book.
Parelli people now don't know how it all started. Many think that the original instructors learnt everything they knew from Pat, then left when they could fly solo. On one of my visits to Silversand Phil Rodey and his wife came to visit. (Another fantastic horseman). He was with Pat in the early days, before Parelli Natural Horse.man.ship (!). They used to haul horses about doing demos etc. When Pat started his organisation he, quite sensibly, invited horsemen and women to join him, Phil was one but he declined. These people had a list of what they had to do in the levels on a piece of paper and submitted videos. It was possible to become an instructor without having been on a clinic to ride with Pat (another of my friends did this). They brought their own slant on the tasks to the table. The more structured Parelli programme came later. (When I did level 1 it was a sheet of paper, the videos came out just as I was finishing it). Anyway, Steve was S A reining champion several times over, Phil Nye had been riding unbroken young Arabs since he was a little kid...

That's my toast eaten, my tea drunk, the sun is out and I'm off to play ponies!