Sorry to hear. I met Lynn Palm and had lunch/dinner with her at a clinic type thing a week or so ago and I found her very passionate about riders and the physical and emotional well being of the horse.
Care to share why?
Thanks!
I have watched and shown with Lynn Palm her whole career. She is extremely knowledgable and talented rider. I respect her emensely for not selling out to win and make money during the AQHA peanut roller HUS era, and moving on to other venues where horses are treated better. But some very talented riders do not have the personable teaching gene.
There are some extremely good trainers in the horse show world, but in thinking about it, they are under such pressure to produce fast results, all the time, that they will not show up on this list. It must be nice to not have to produce winners in tough competition constantly, and be able to clinic. produce media, and expound on horse training lore. Just sayin.
The reiner trainers listed may be the exception, but you know the best names on this list start with 30 horses to get to the one or two you see and drool over in competition. Shane Brown, the local Colo trainer that did the first 60 days on my young Appx horses, is a thinking, dressage oriented reining trainer who is starting to get national notice winning Freestyles and significant competitions. There is no discard pile behind his barn. Him I would watch.
Lynn is a talented horse woman, no doubt. But she cannot teach as well as she can ride and train.
[QUOTE=katarine;6558504]
Lynn is a talented horse woman, no doubt. But she cannot teach as well as she can ride and train.[/QUOTE]
I watched her give a clinic once at Equine Affaire and chatted with her afterwards. Not the best venue for judging someone’s pedagogy.
OTOH, I have a correct-enough and broad-enough base of knowledge that I can sort better from worse and I know when someone has left a gap in their explanation. I saw her do this. Bits were left out even within the limited thing she was trying to show us how to teach a horse (who already more or less knew what she was asking).
I suspect that she is one of those talented riders who can get more done than she can explain… Or her teaching isn’t “packaged” in a way that admits how long the training process takes for most ordinary riders.
A professional buddy of mine has some clients who have signed up for Mike Bridge’s 5 Year Plan. According to his website, you sign up to spend 5 years with him (via visits and e-mail) learning how to make up a horse as the vacqueros did.
My buddy, a born skeptic, isn’t impressed with the progress she sees her local ammies making. But! She also says that know one will discuss how Mike works with people over 5 years (besides those 2X yearly visits). Also, the cost seems to be a secret.
Anyone have these answers? I don’t mean to turn this into an “out the snake oil horse trainer” guy. And I’ll go watch some of his public clinics in the next few weeks to judge for myself (if I know enough about the vacquero system of three bridles).
mvp, regarding the horse that internalizes things…yes, absolutely Buck could do wonders with a horse like this. Unfortunately, Buck is pretty swamped in his clinics and it is hard to get enough one-on-one time that a troubled horse really needs lately. Not that it doesn’t happen, it does…but it’s pretty hard to get into a Buck clinic in the first place lately.
Absolutely go audit! Your brain will be full, for sure.
And I don’t want to discourage anybody from going and riding in a Buck clinic if they can get in. The funny thing about a Buck clinic is that he can have a whole arena full of riders from clueless to exceptional, all ‘doing the same thing’ but everyone really busy and engaged and learning. And there always seems to be time to ride up to Buck and say, HOW does this work, again? We’re not getting it. Also, at the end of a clinic session you circle up around in a group, and have that chance to have any of your questions answered in depth. And if you’re completely in over your head with a troubled horse, Buck or an assistant of his (often Reata in the summertime) will often take over the horse for some extra help. That’s how I met Charles Snell- Buck asked him to come help at the clinic, and I needed some extra help with my (dismal at the time) groundwork. So definitely worth going.
But anyway, for the stress-internalizing horse, I know of nobody better than Harry Whitney. Go to his website, check him out:
http://www.harrywhitney.com/
Harry Whitney doesn’t self-promote much. He also doesn’t have books or DVDs to sell. However, equestrian journalist Tom Moates has written three books about his own experiences learning ‘the deep stuff’, as I would put it, from Harry:
http://www.tommoates.com/books.php
Specifically, the books ‘A Horse’s Thought’, ‘Between the Reins’, and ‘Further Along the Trail’ are the ones about his experiences with Harry Whitney. The ‘Discovering Natural Horsemanship’ book is one I don’t have, the ‘A Horse’s Thought’ book explains in the first (second?) chapter how Tom figures out that a lot of what he learned and wrote about in his ‘NH’ book was not right by the horse:
http://www.harrywhitney.com/sg_userfiles/Deconstruction.pdf
Anyway, you get one-on-one time (like a private lesson, but other clinic goers are expected to watch and ask questions) with Harry at his clinics. The clinics are expensive, but they are a total-immersion deal and if you have a troubled horse, said horse is going to get real help directly from Harry.
Here’s a link to a Western Horseman article about Mike Bridges’ 5 year program.
[QUOTE=NoSuchPerson;6558651]
Here’s a link to a Western Horseman article about Mike Bridges’ 5 year program.
http://www.mikebridges.net/html/pdf/vaquero.pdf[/QUOTE]
Thanks very much for making that PDF for me.
Ironically, I’m currently living about 3 hours from Bend with my skeptic-pro buddy up there.
I wonder how much someone needs to know before they do the 5 Year Vaquero thing.
I have an old retired show hunter whom I made up from a straw of cooled semen. He’s currently teaching little kids to ride on the Other Coast. I got to go ride him recently and was reminded why I do this. I love the long term relationship with a horse. All the buttons I installed with Old Man are still operative. Yet he can tolerate and teach others, too.
I’d love to do that again with another horse but better and faster next time around.
I’m quite fascinated with the old style vaquero horsemanship. I would love to have the opportunity to learn how to create a vaquero-style bridle horse. Unfortunately, I don’t foresee ever being in a position to do it.
Flame suit zipped
I grew up 50 years ago in Santa Barbara, Ca when the ‘Stock Horse Class’ was populated by horsemen who had learned with the ‘Olde Style Vaquero’ tradition. It was not all that, and the old time photos of horses sliding to a stop on their hind legs with front legs braced up in the air and mouths wide open are accurate to some extent. Spins were rather wild.
Lots of over and under with the romal on the rundown. Lots of scotching also in anticipation of the haul on the mouth to stop, and these were big names in Olde West Coast Traditional Horsemanship. The old guy I first rode with as a kid was the real deal of Spanish Land Grant inheritance and only spade bits. His horses were well trained, soft, and had a decent handle on them, but he was unknown, as he did not even own a truck and trailer to get to a competition.
On my first trip East to Congress in early 70s, the skating stops with softly running front feet and mouths shut, blew me away. Bob Loomis blew me away.
Lots of ways to embelish the process of making a good, responsive horse with smoke and voodoo.
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Why would you need a flame suit? You’re simply reporting what you saw, right? You aren’t issuing a blanket condemnation of the principles of old style vaquero bridle horse training, are you? I mean, you said that the guy you knew who was “the real deal” had horses that were well trained, soft, and had a decent handle on them.
Just because a bunch of yahoos dominated the show ring for a time doesn’t mean the entire discipline is bad. In any discipline you’re going to find good and bad and in any discipline that lasts over many decades you’re going to see fads come and go and chances are that some of them are going to be ugly.
No flames from me.
Just because a bunch of yahoos dominated the show ring for a time doesn’t mean the entire discipline is bad.
I think I want this for my signature line!
[QUOTE=Plumcreek;6559068 Bob Loomis blew me away.
[/QUOTE]
Amazing trainer and horseman.
My Dad got two fabulous reiners by his stallion Topsail Cody out of our King Fritz mare. We were considered rebels at the time because we didn’t breed to the more “California” type reiners (stock horses) on the West coast and sent the mare to Nebraska instead. We weren’t disappointed.
[QUOTE=Diamondindykin;6557485]
Tim McQuay and Shawn Flarida :yes:[/QUOTE]
I got to see both back ages ago. Both were awesome. The lope on their reining horses is/was nicer then the pleasure horses. A nice true, comfortable gait with ears up and relaxed horses.
[QUOTE=Plumcreek;6559068]
Flame suit zipped
I grew up 50 years ago in Santa Barbara, Ca when the ‘Stock Horse Class’ was populated by horsemen who had learned with the ‘Olde Style Vaquero’ tradition. It was not all that, and the old time photos of horses sliding to a stop on their hind legs with front legs braced up in the air and mouths wide open are accurate to some extent. Spins were rather wild.
Lots of over and under with the romal on the rundown. Lots of scotching also in anticipation of the haul on the mouth to stop, and these were big names in Olde West Coast Traditional Horsemanship. The old guy I first rode with as a kid was the real deal of Spanish Land Grant inheritance and only spade bits. His horses were well trained, soft, and had a decent handle on them, but he was unknown, as he did not even own a truck and trailer to get to a competition.
On my first trip East to Congress in early 70s, the skating stops with softly running front feet and mouths shut, blew me away. Bob Loomis blew me away.
Lots of ways to embelish the process of making a good, responsive horse with smoke and voodoo.[/QUOTE]
I’m from very old California stock. While I’d like to think that those vaqueros got it right, I’m not looking for a horse who is doing any job with a gaping mouth.
On the topic of obscure-but-great cowboys. I have known several, including a guy in “Deliverance”-type country in Central NY. I was told never to send a horse to his place as it was run down and horses got hurt there. But by God that guy knew a ton and could teach people to read and change their horses. I felt lucky to have a chance to watch him and ask questions.
That dude taught and felt about teaching the way Mike Bridges described in that article. The folks at the top are very, very happy to pass on what they know. What a pleasure!
I think there is a very big difference between training a horse to do a job and training a horse to try and win something in the show pen (not rodeo). The old guy at whose place I was a barn rat, did nothing competative and mostly rode out to check water troughs and bring in the horses from the far pasture, and lead us kids on over night pack trips over the mountains trails to the Santa Ynez valley. If we were lucky, we could ride along on an expedition (with cross buck pack saddles, rawhide paniers, the whole nine yards) down to Safeway and watch his horses, tied to the fence, while he grocery shopped. He used his silver mounted bridles, vaquero saddle, and beautiful spade bits as working tack. I suspect the original Vaqueros did the same on the local ranches.
The guys I watched show in the stock horse classes were not yahoos. Today their names are west coast legend and reining futurities are named after them. But they were trying to win something - right here, right now, and had all the pressures of owners and show schedules. Horse training has come a very long way, and if we had videos of the olden days, would the techniques stand up to the best of the present?
One thing that gripes me about today’s trainers is that they have mostly come up from Juniors in their chosen venue. They do not have the cross-training perspective that the old guys did. The old guys, like Jimmy Williams, started out training all types of horses until things got big enough that they could specialize in their later years. Bob Loomis showd saddlebreds before reining. The late, great Western Pleasure trainer, Guy Stoops was a young apprentice at the Spanish Riding School in Austria.
I rode in a Buck clinic last fall and it was amazing. A great horseman and all around nice person…I really learned a lot. We all had a chance to ask questions, and he spent some extra time on the ground with one particular problem horse. I learned a lot just watching that. The mare made decent progress by the end of the weekend, and her owner was able to ride her again. I’m already pinching pennies in order to ride in the next one that comes my way. This time I want to take my 4yr old, not the “problem” horse I took last time. I’m hoping everything I did wrong with him/learned from Buck, will translate into a better trip with the 4yr old. Maybe we’ll be ready for Horsemanship II.
I rode in a Stacy Westfall clinic 5 yrs ago, and while I admire her greatly and love watching her ride, I didn’t feel like I learned much. Perhaps her teaching style and my learning style just didn’t mesh. She was incredibly nice and her kids were very sweet. Apparently her horse training skills translate well to parenting. They were very well mannered little boys.
Another vote for Buck. What about the Israeli dressage /western dressage rider first name Eitan?
Another vote for Buck. On top of him there’s Mark Shaffer–I haven’t been to his clinics since they are expensive as sin but I have watched his Mechanics N Motion dvd and it’s really, really good. I’d also recommend Shane Dowdy.
