What in the world??? I thought they were professional horse trainers!!

[Willow's Meadow]

This is Linda Parelli.....I don't know what she is doing to this poor horse!!!!! Someone please tell me this is not natural horsmanship!!!!!!!!

http://www.ebaumsworld.com/video/watch/80925308

 

[Little Ameraucana Mom]

I can't believe she kept hitting the poor thing in the head. He was so confused.

 

[mom2jedi]

Wow, you're not kidding. That's AWFUL! That poor horse has no clue as to what she wants. I read a few of the replies and it looks like right before this the horse wasn't paying attention to her so she was "correcting" him getting distracted. Um Hello? There are much better ways to do that than what she was doing! Poor guy was dancing away from her at the end. I would be too. Even though his ears were up, he was licking and chomping the whole time - evidence of stress.

As far as natural horsemanship, I can't answer that. It's been years since I had a horse but I never saw anything like this.

 

[Olive Hill]

Didn't watch the video (slow internet) but if you thought the Parellis were professional trainers that's probably the first place you went wrong.

 

[purr]

my god i used to keep a carrot in my pocket to get his attention, and hitting a horse in the face with the reins is a great way to get a fight every time you pick up a bridle

 

[Gallus_domesticus]

Wow that is really stupid! The horse obviously doesn't know what she wants him to do. I'm glad the whole natural horsemanship movement came around, because the way most horses were trained before it was even more stupid than this video. But there are certainly some trainers that are all about the gimmicks.

 

[Hound]

Quote:
Didn't you know it's impossible to train a horse without a beach ball?

 

[fancy]

It would be good to know a little more about what was going on before making any judgements. I am glad to have been able to work with some Parelli trainers as my horse is very bossy. She is a love now and after taking time off for a baby (2/09 thru today) she was ridden today with no fuss, no lunging, no round pen, just get on and ride. I love her.

Fancy

 

[rebelcowboysnb]

Remember this is a cut video with no context.

My understanding of the video is that it is a horse that is blind in one eye an is unsafe to be around. I believe they are trying to get it to stay where it can see the humans an give them space for the safety of the humans in her pen. Apparently the owner was happy with the results. In the broad spectrum that is horse training, this is not the nicest treatment but its far from the worst an all the different ways that people do it, work.

I don't necessarily agree with the treatment in this video but I was not there to see what the horse was like.

 

[welsummerchicks]

The Parelli's have increasingly come under fire for various incidents that have been put all over the internet.

I don't think this one needs any context. It's just not terribly clever to hit a horse in the face no matter what he's doing. For a long time, he got away with it, as it was viewed as sort of a 'cowboy' thing and a lot more roughness was tolerated because he's a 'cowboy' and 'they know so much'.

That said, I'm not too sure who's really behind the internet lynching of the Parellis, probably a competitor turning up the pressure.

I think much of the horsey consumer public today, doesn't like to see ANY discipline or roughness. They think ANY discipline or insistence on obedience is wrong. In that sense, they're vulnerable to anyone who comes along and has hysterics over what Parelli is doing.

This isn't to say I agree with training horses this way. I'm just saying when someone doesn't think ANY discipline should be used, they're vulnerable to the competition's hysterics, even when the competition isn't really all that different.

It's called the principle of cognitive dissonance - convincing the consumer that there is more difference between various business people's offerings than there really is.

Here's the peculiar thing. They've always handled horses this way. There's nothing different going on right now that would be so unusual or different. They've always swung ropes around and made horses throw their heads up. They've always hit the horses on the head with various ropes and things.

The only difference now, is that they appear to have cottoned on to the extremely lucrative sport horse market. Instead of making fun of dressage riders, like they did for decades (and boy did the customers LOVE to hear the 'snooty dressage riders' made fun of and ridiculed, the audience just ATE...IT...UP), now they're both trying to court them and get into their pocketbooks.

Their ideas that a horse needs to learn his 'space' and such are much embroidered on and elaborated over the years, but have been basically the same for a very, very long time. But people have eaten this kind of silliness up for years.

For YEARS, Parellis enjoyed fundamental immunity in the media and press, they could do no wrong in the eyes of the riding public. They were adored. Pat and Linda have spent literally decades, failing at competition and wooing adoring fans. It's really very ironic, to be honest.

The 'celebrity horse trainer business' is a very, very strange thing. I seriously doubt any of them have anything really unique or different to offer over a good decent, solid traditional trainer with traditional apprenticeship, competition experience and coaching gotten from better people.

And perhaps in many cases, they aren't even as good as a decent solid traditional trainer. It's only marketing that makes it seem so.

But why at this time, Parelli-is-bad videos are going viral all over the internet, is anyone's guess. My guess is a competitor. And like most things on the internet, these sort of 'trends' gain momentum and everyone joins in. You can probably expect more videos to surface over time.

Parelli isn't done yet. There are still plenty of people who adore him, and will lecture those who criticize him. Oddly, people have very short memories. Even if a celebrity trainer kills a horse or is involved in some incredible flap, he'll have plenty of adoring groupies again.

But as I said, the celebrity trainer business is a very weird one, and a very fickle one. Stay tuned for further developments.