Has there been a thread about natural horsemanship, liberty etc v more traditional training methods?

[Streptocarpus982]

I just wondered where everyone is ‘at’ with this atm? I’d welcome some honest opinions please. I know Parelli in particular wasn’t popular on here about 10 years ago but horsemanship has evolved in to different aligned methods more recently which are better taught now and more and more riders are taking on board natural
horsemanship methods.

I was taught traditional classical methods of schooling in my youth but I’m old so that was forty years ago now.

More recently, I returned to riding, bought my own horse and have been having intermittent lessons with someone who is a very very skilled practitioner in natural horsemanship and liberty - I am not talking Monty Roberts chasing around a pen endlessly for no good reason - it’s much more subtle and thorough and gentle than that. More Warwick Schiller meets Emma Massingale with a gentle but firm featherlight touch!

Natural horsemanship was completely new to me and I find it fascinating but I am not very skilled in it as yet so I don’t have as much confidence with it as I do in the methods I was taught originally. I’m doing a lot of groundwork obviously and I love it but it’s one of the hardest things I’ve ever done, especially as my horse is eleven years old and quite a stubborn weight carrier type.

The lessons are expensive and some days have gone great and other days I’ve felt frustrated as I’m relearning basic stuff eg putting a horse back in the stable, and even that I can’t seem to do right the new way! I have come to appreciate the importance of groundwork though and how it feeds in to work under saddle.

Anyway, I have come to a sort of crossroads where I don’t know which road to go down. I don’t compete or anything, other than in-hand at a very local village show or doing the most basic of dressage, I mainly hack and hope to drive as I get older. And I am at the mid point where I have left my old methods behind but I am not totally skilled at the new methods yet. And the lessons are mega expensive. So I am having a bit of a wobble.

To compound this I got some really snotty comments recently from people at my yard who are very embedded shall we say in traditional methods, some of whom
are very good horsemen, asking what did I think I doing “fannying about” and “he’s not a circus trick pony you know”.

Any advice please? Sorry this was so long!

Though to be fair that does sound like a scenario straight out of Pullein-Thompson.

That’s a shame. I’ve seen some really good ones with wide tracks incorporating hills, logs, ponds, gravel or sand in muddy/high use sections, treed areas, and the ability to move the fences around for rotational grazing. It’s a pity if people are just using them as cheap, muddy walkers.

@Gremlinsateit sadly not. Seen it a fair few times at our yard with spoiled teenagers and cluless parents 🙄

@BaroldBalonz - I'm in Portugal. Easier to attach a photo of the track rather than try to explain it! The three fields are normally closed off but there are some big areas for the horses to chill in.

Great setup! I guess you don't have the same mud issues as we do over here. The woodland area in ours us always open, and we open up sections inside the track from time to time to let them have a bit of grass and a change. A lot of track owners work on a no grass principle but that has never been my aim. Everything in moderation. I personally think that if you take horses off grass completely you'll be in danger of causing them to become sensitive to it. Obviously it's different if you're dealing with an existing medical condition.
BTW - for those of us who were watching the beginnings of "NH" when Monty and Parelli were coming over - natural horsemanship is only about a particular style of training. Nothing to do with how the horses are kept. This just shows how vague the label is.

@Blackfleece Mud is a little bit of an issue! Luckily the house and surrounding area is at the top of a hill so we can block off the lower areas when it gets too bad.

Sorry, I didn’t mean I was doubting you, just that inexperienced people using tack incorrectly has been a problem for a long time.

Ah, yes that's a bit of an issue! Our track is quite good in most places but we end up shutting off access to the stream and a few other areas when they get very wet. Funny how you can give the horses hard standing, shelter and yet they will still go and stand in mud. 😁

I think I've found my people here, a lot of sense being said!

Yes, and my horse was stabled at the same place where Andy worked and where he kept Stormy - the Haras de la Cense.

I got to meet Stormy a few times, even trimmed his feet once when a barefoot-trimming couple came over to help me with my horse's central sulcus problems. There's a phrase I never thought I'd say.

Anyway, the deal with Stormy was that lots of horses didn't like him. Mine couldn't go near him... he smelt different. And my horse was never very open-minded or tolerant of new things 😛

Anyway, for all its touting of "back to nature" and horses living as they should, I had to fight hard for my horse to be turned out in company - I literally had to galvanise another owner whose mare was very friendly with my gelding, into demanding and re-demanding that our horses be allowed to share a field.

La Cense's promotional material showed small herds running happily across huge fields. The reality was individual paddocks of half an acre with shelters, or, if you wanted a proper box, the paddock was literally just about ten metres by ten.

I wholeheartedly agree!!

I heard this about Haras de la Cense. The thing is, Pat P had never been a massive advocate of natural horse care, so why would his instructors have it as a priority.

I think some people turn to the NH and other similar things (like clicker, horse agility groundwork etc) because they wouldn't do much else with them. For whatever reason they aren't planning to do much or any riding, so they do something different. I have nothing against people owning un-ridden horses, as long as they are well cared for and and have some interesting stuff in their lives.
I'm from the more alternative side of the horsemanship tracks, but my horses work regularly. We do long hacks and a little bit of ridden work in the arena.

That's the kind of balance my horse thrived on, ninja. He has always been stabled right next to huge forests where you could hack for hours every day. At La Cense, they preferred to spend hours fannying around waving flags and ropes and coaxing bored horses to jump streams in hand.

Someone I admire, very much of the old-school BHS mentality, watched a NH session with rescue horses and described the horses' reactions as one of "bored compliance". And to be fair, when most people embark on NH they overdo the desensitizing and never properly get around to the sensitizing, which makes for dull sessions with switched-off horses.

I love the Connection Training stuff, so much so that after reading their book and watching all the free stuff on YouTube I took out a subscription to their website and have kept it up. Absolutely changed the relationship I have with my horses for the better and meant that when my will-flatten-any-vet-who-comes-near-him-with-a-needle 27-year-old needed blood tests we were able to get the blood draw first time and calmly (the vet, who had injected him before, was astonished at the difference) and when he sadly had to be PTS not long after, it was quiet and calm and with no panic, which made all the difference to both of us.

I'm lucky and have mine at home, so I put up a temporary track in the summer over four fields which drop about 50 metres from road level to sea level, (just too wet on the north coast of Scotland in winter) and they race round it, plus I leave their favourite rolling spots as larger loafing areas in the track. It works pretty well for us, I have good-doer hairy natives and it's certainly kept their weight under control a lot better than strip grazing the same fields did.

That’s interesting Verylittleowl is that the Connection Training with Rachel Bedingfield and Hannah Weston?

Yes, that's them.

Horses do not have a prefrontal cortex they don't have it in for people, do anything to annoy or for their amusement...

Added to this comment should be the words "with the exception of shetlands!"

@whyisitsohardtochangemyname I think one day someone will discover that Shetlands are descended from monkeys rather than horses.

Sorry for late response @VeryLittleOwl have been travelling! Funnily enough I have already subscribed to their site as I thought it looked interesting but I haven’t actually followed any of the tutorials. I am a bit worried about use of treats in training because my lad can get a bit pushy with titbits but will look at it again now you have mentioned it.

😃😫😃 @ Sh*tlands comment!

It's worth taking the time to go through the foundation course really thoroughly - I started with two really pushy natives, but now I train with an open-top fisherman's boilie bag around my waist, full of chaff and hay cobs, that they could easily dip their noses into and eat straight out of, but they don't. After you've got the foundation thoroughly you can pick and choose a bit more with the rest.

Thank you again VeryLittleOwl that sounds encouraging! Will take that on board!