NH, Bonding, Lyons, Roberts, et al (WARNING!!! LONG!!!)

Yesterday, I went to the State Fair. Having horses on the brain, the first place I went was the World of Horses exhibit. A rather tiny exhibit with the horses in stalls with little placards stating breed info. An Arab, a Spanish-Barb, a Caspian, three Andalusians, a TB, a Palomino, a Paint, an Appaloosa and a whole herd of mini's. Every hour, there was a demo in the round pen. A horsemanship demo. I stayed to watch. Exactly on time a well-groomed cowboy (nicely creased Resistol, Wrangler jeans just dusty enough to be fashionable, shiny spurs, and carrying a 12' rope.) A horse "needing work" was placed in the pen. The nice little 14.2 hand gray Arab whose stall sign had mentioned something about state level wins in hunter, wp and halter. In the hour of allotted time, the cowboy swung his rope some, sent the horse around the pen a couple of times and spent long interminable amounts of time telling the audience that very few people can really train a horse and quoted some Roberts, some Foreman, some Hunt some Lyons and lots of Parelli-isms. And when he finally managed to hop up bareback on the patient horse, he managed to do a bit of side passing, backing up, and nice circles at a walk. All the time repeating to the audience about how this is the only way to achieve partnership with your horse. I'm thinking to myself Self, how many times do you think in this horse's life has he been asked to back up and walk calmly with little contact? Bare in mind Self that this is a western pleasure winner. The audience seemed to lap it up. I'm thinking charlatan. And lest anyone accuse me of lumping all of this "type" training together with just one exposure....

Years ago, I boarded at a barn where "natural horsemanship" was real big. Lots of clinics by local gurus. Knotted rope halters almost overnight replaced regular buckled halters, and I always found "carrot sticks" (and not the edible kind) in the round pen. I owned a rather crotchety older gelding, definitely a "Grumpy Old Men" kind of horse. Convinced that I was leaving something out of our 15 year relationship, I tried the round pen "techniques". Boarded there for a year, did the round pen for a year, never noticed any mystical bonding experience with the horse. But I was not convinced that it wasn't something I had done. Maybe I just didn't "get" it?

So I bought the books. And the videos. And the audio cassettes. And I read. I studied. And watched tapes. And wondered why "everyone" else could get something awesome things out of roundpens and the science of moving a horses feet but me. So I passed on a couple of the books/videos/tapes to a novice rider/relative. Who read the books and watched the videos. And started the techniques on her horse. And who later gave up riding lessons and working with her horse (and almost gave up riding completely) because she just couldn't "get it" like those books said she should. What kept her in the saddle? My taking the books, videos, etc away, throwing a saddle on a horse MY way ("Stand still fool! You've seen a saddle a million times!") and telling her to just ride the damn horse.

Not too long ago at a local rodeo, I came across one of those old friends from the boarding barn those many years ago. His horse had a regular halter under his bridle, no pigging string nor carrot stick nor long ropes in sight. I watched him saddle up, mount and ride off to warm up. Wow! I was impressed with how well he was handling (horse used to be a bastard to saddle, alternate spooky and mean, and had a real good buck when he put his mind to it and my friend was a good bit nervous of coming off) and asked if the round pen moving the feet stuff had finally worked for them. Nope. Did it for years, my friend said, and I don't board there any more. New place doesn't have a round pen. New barn has no new-age gurus, just college kids on rodeo stock who think all the round pen stuff is for easterners and sissy's. What worked is finally climbing in the saddle and getting out to ride.

So while I have no interest what so ever in what anyone else does with their horse, I (and I'm positive there are other's like me), have been there and done that with reasonable/natural/harmonious round pen magic tricks. And when I hear myself being called a close-minded skeptic or in a self-induced fog in which I arbitrarily dismiss at will said techniques or pop off on ill-based assumptions, I tend to get a bit testy. But hey, I'll not return the favor and just go ride (with no round pen in sight).

-Tamara Woodcock
“Maybe I shouldn't have told Stan I reprogrammed his DNA through the LAN. Those marketing guys believe anything. They even believe market research, for heaven's sake. There's no telling what the power of suggestion might do.”

[Date Prev]	[Date Next]	[Thread Prev]	[Thread Next]
[Date Index]	[Thread Index]	[Author Index]	[Subject Index]