I was a Deb Cooper student at Lightfoot years
ago. I didn't pursue passing my Level One because I got busy and was
riding endurance. I passed Level One with one of Deb's protoges, Cezanne,
when I got the Bey Shah disconnect brained horse.
Deb has been very controversial with some people in
the Parelli program. There are those that thinks that she is
dangerous. I never thought that she was dangerous, but she sure knew how
to make me push my fear envelope. If you have advanced with Deb
Cooper, my hat's off to you because she isn't for scaredy cats and
whiners! And the Levels program was much harder to pass back
then. And she certainly probably won't tolerate endless finger wiggling -
you got to go to Phase 4 otherwise your "nagging" huh?
Becky Hart's involvement with Parelli was when she and several of the
other Light Foot group took lessons from Deb Cooper (www.DebCooperHorses.com) as well as
many other well known endurance riders in the Santa Cruz, CA area.. Becky
currently focuses on Centered Riding Techniques and I believe she teaches that
method. Deb spent 14-15 years with Pat's program. I spent five years at
Deb's place and she help me get to level 3. One of the reasons Deb left Pat's
program was because the program doesn't allow you to take it to sport until
you get to level 4. The Parelli program is a horsemanship program and was
designed for people with limited exposure to horses. However it is applicable
for people with extensive horse involvement and can certainly enhance their
performance (as evidenced by their involvement with the OConners, Leon Harrel,
Stacey Westfall and others). It certainly provides a strong foundation for
working with horses. It can be taken to very elite levels in the liberty area
of horsemanship as evidenced by Honza (I was part of group that worked with
him at Deb's place for about 3 months), and Nezarov (who was introduced to the
techniques by Honza). The program works best with high quality instructors
(Deb, Lee Smith, David Lichman, Janita Hayes, Karen Rohlf, etc.) Karen Scholl
is also a product of the program and now has her own program that focuses on
women who are coming back to horses. It can be learned from the CDs just the
same way any subject manner can be learned from a book. IMO I wouldn't call it
a riding program. The best riding program I know of today is a 50 year old
program developed by Monte Foreman called the Foreman Handle. The only
remaining instructors of this program are Janiece Wilson (Queen Creek, AZ),
Patrick Wyse, and Ron McLoughlin (Pearce, AZ). They teach you how to
ride, really ride. Flying lead changes, 360's, rollbacks, and turn outs to the
opposite lead at a gallop.
All of these programs have their place dependent on your needs and
abilities. I have seen many riders in a variety of disciplines with varying
degrees of horsemanship that could benefit from any number of these programs.
I have also seen what most would consider to be top horse people display lousy
horsemanship. One example comes to mind on the A level jumping circuit where a
top level winning rider in warm-up had his horse rear up on him and he pulled
back on the reins pulling the horse over on him. I am sure when you go to
rides you will see people with some very big and severe bits. Endurance is
point to point with little need for elevation. It requires mostly lateral
flexion. Bits are not brakes. Most horses can do what we do in a rope halter.
Anybody remember Tracy Falcone (another Parelli student) doing Tevis in a neck
string? When asked why, I think she said because she can. A testament to her
training and her horse's training. Most people think that they know more than
the next guy, especially those who are earning lots of money conveying their
knowledge. I would prefer to work with the premise that I can learn something
from anybody and never turn down the opportunity for education.
