# Natural horsemanship whats your opinions



## sligy (Jul 3, 2012)

I love to take a kinder hand to my horse so have read many different natural horsemanship books. But after watching all of the parelli dvds and loads of others i am coming to the conclusion that while some ideas are great others are pure rubbish. Have any of you read any and what are your thoughts on them???
When i was younger i went and saw a monty roberts demo, i thought it was brilliant. But i have just for the first time read some of his books, so i was wondering what are your thoughts on him are??
I also saw a ken faulker demmo an did not think much on him.


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## AlexArt (Apr 25, 2010)

I think most are drivel and nothing more than very good money making machines with no care or respect for the horses, and are often very dangerous in the hands of amateurs which are usually the vast majority of folk who are attracted to these sorts of methods - I won't even sell a horse to someone who does parelli or Monty as the vast majority of horses end up totally screwed up.

I do believe in common sense which I think most horse ownership is, the only one I do like is Claus Hempfling once you get through some of the hippy bits his methods are just that - common sense - but he does have a natural ability with horses that most can only dream of but I like his thinking and reasons for doing what he does. 
I've seen one of his demos and was very impressed - not very exciting to watch and not a glitzy circus show like the others but very much based on the individual animals needs and issues and I like the fact his horses are all very well ridden to high levels without any use of the bit - just muscle build up and correct posture for rider and horse and no selling of crap gadgets to make money - well worth reading anyway!


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## sligy (Jul 3, 2012)

I really never took to any of the parelli rubbish but when i read about the horse catwalk at one of the demos i was horrified. Some natural horsemanship that is.


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## lucylastic (Apr 9, 2011)

My opinion of Natural Horsemanship is that is neither natural nor horsemanship.


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## Blitz (Feb 12, 2009)

Most natural horsemanship methods are incredibly hard on the horse, far far harder than conventional handling. Problem is that some people cannot see this and try and copy it but miss out the hard bits so it does not work.


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## sligy (Jul 3, 2012)

I have a few idea i like but there nothing more than common sense really. I like the way monty roberts loads a horse that is unwilling. I find it is much less stressful for them. The join up theory works but i wonder what message we are leaving our horse with at the end of it. 
The ground work of keen faulkers makes no sense to me not psycologically anyway. My mum had one of his trainers out and she spent the whole time slapping the horse with a long line saying he was bolshy until i lost my rag and asked her to leave. something i had nor had my mum ever experienced was our horse being bolshy. He was not very respectful of space but was never shovie. 
One person i do really like is heather moffat, while i would not call her someone who follows natural horsemanship i do feel she has put alot of thought into how a horse moves and how we can ride with as little impact on the horses back, which can only be a good thing. 
What horseman woman do you like?? and why????
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