"Cult of personality"-- guru-like trainers in WesternWorld

[Kyzteke]

Yep about gender bias. If you look at the top level of ALL horse sports, it is dominated by men. Yet if you go to most clinics of ALL disciplines, you see the majority of participants are women (being taught by a man).

Why isn’t it the reverse? Where do all those women go after they learn stuff?

I mentioned Leslie Desmond. She was Bill Dorrance’s student for many years. Although she is a wonderful horse person w/ truly +unique ideas, she is one of the least known and least popular of the NHS clinicians. Her style is brusque and forthright and she often makes mild digs at her students. BB does the same thing and gets away with it.

If a male teacher does this, (most) women will just keep their mouth shut. If a woman teacher does the exact same thing, women think she’s a bitch.

This is the way the world works, pure and simple.

Hilary Clinton is a ball-buster. A man doing the same stuff is considered a confident leader…:rolleyes:

I guess we all burned our bras in the '70’s for nothing…

[RPM]

Being female myself, I have no cojones. I do however have guts for garters.

I have a female friend who admires Stacy* and seems to take her as an authority over the guys. She’s never met Stacy, never worked with her, so I don’t know why she has formed her high opinion, but she has. Have another female friend who was an admirer of Chris** over all the other guys (this friend doesn’t work with horses nowadays so don’t know what she thinks about Chris’s counterparts),.

My male horsey friends don’t quote either male or female “trainers” of the sort I think you mean, mvp. Either they know more traditional-type trainers (male and female) or they do their own horse work.

*Westfall
**Irwin/Erwin

[mvp]

[QUOTE=LookmaNohands;7275260]
As train wreck threads go this one is boring.

Back to eventing land for me![/QUOTE]

We are civilized over here in COTH Western. The contributing community over here is just too small to be going whole hog for cannibalism, that’s all.

And don’t ask me to think you are brave and bad-a$$ hanging out in Eventing. Go have an unorthodox opinion in DressageWorld and see what kind of scar you can earn for yourself. They play rough over there!

[katarine]

[QUOTE=Kyzteke;7275536]
Yep about gender bias. If you look at the top level of ALL horse sports, it is dominated by men. Yet if you go to most clinics of ALL disciplines, you see the majority of participants are women (being taught by a man).

Why isn’t it the reverse? Where do all those women go after they learn stuff?

I mentioned Leslie Drummond. She was Bill Dorrance’s student for many years. Although she is a wonderful horse person w/ truly +unique ideas, she is one of the least known and least popular of the NHS clinicians. Her style is brusque and forthright and she often makes mild digs at her students. BB does the same thing and gets away with it.

If a male teacher does this, (most) women will just keep their mouth shut. If a woman teacher does the exact same thing, women think she’s a bitch.

This is the way the world works, pure and simple.

Hilary Clinton is a ball-buster. A man doing the same stuff is considered a confident leader…:rolleyes:

I guess we all burned our bras in the '70’s for nothing…[/QUOTE]

Do you mean Leslie Desmond? Or am I confused?

If you’d just said Leslie, there’d be no confusion. Tsk tsk…

KIDDING!!!

[mvp]

[QUOTE=Kyzteke;7275536]
Yep about gender bias. If you look at the top level of ALL horse sports, it is dominated by men. Yet if you go to most clinics of ALL disciplines, you see the majority of participants are women (being taught by a man).

Why isn’t it the reverse? Where do all those women go after they learn stuff?

I mentioned Leslie Drummond. She was Bill Dorrance’s student for many years. Although she is a wonderful horse person w/ truly +unique ideas, she is one of the least known and least popular of the NHS clinicians. Her style is brusque and forthright and she often makes mild digs at her students. BB does the same thing and gets away with it.[/QUOTE]

Whoever said it-- that women paying for these clinics are participating in dissing their own gender-- is right, IMO. It is a sad and true feature of the world. It embarrasses me, as a chick, and really makes me dislike other chicks.

I think there are two double standards for male/female mentors that you bring up.

1. Guy gets to disparage students** and gets away with it. Woman gets nailed and her character is impugned.

** IMO, dissing a student is almost never allowed. To me, it is a form of bullying since the teacher (at least in school) always has more power and more knowledge than the student. With great power comes great responsibility, including not misusing it.

Anywho:

2. For the same reason: We seem to just love it when Marlborough Man-looking guy gets confessional, or down-home or soft or has a common sense-sounding theory of raising puppies or children or misunderstood criminals or whatever. Woman shows us her soft side? Meh, that was expected, nothing special.

The other ingredient of the charismatic horse trainer, of course, is competence with the animal-- at least the ability to change him right before our eyes. Maybe the trainer even gets “surgically rough” with the horse for a minute on the way to a better result.

When a man does it, we expected him to-- no problem that he does, that’s what made him worth the price of admission. When a woman does it, we are skeptical. Is she always so rough? Was that a well-applied jerk on the rope or chasing with the leg?

There are some female clinicians writing/demonstrating now that have the ear-marks of doing a nice job. But I find good horse training to be genderless.

And the female “big clinician” I could think of from the first generation of them was Lynn Palm.

[Bluey]

Lynn Palm earned her top of the heap stars from learning well what is required first, then training and competing and doing it better than most.

She didn’t just get out there and hung a shingle and went on the road with the gift of gab and scant real knowledge other than a good seat of the pants try and learning on the job.

[mrs.smith]

Hmmm, well one of my favorite western clinicians actually does have a pretty impressive record. That would be Jack Brainard. He is a fan of Baucher, and incorporates many aspects of French dressage in his training style, and is known as the Father of the flying lead change in the reining community. Like they say, if you can’t change leads, you don’t know “Jack”.

As for the lady factor, well, to me there’s nothing cuter than a 92 year old man on a stock horse performing 2 tempe changes

[Kyzteke]

[QUOTE=katarine;7275601]
Do you mean Leslie Desmond? Or am I confused?

If you’d just said Leslie, there’d be no confusion. Tsk tsk…

KIDDING!!![/QUOTE]

Yes!!! Geeze, I’m thinking my Woodstock days are catching up to me! For some reason I was combining Bettina Drummond (classical dressage lady) and Leslie Desmond.

Thanks for catching that…Leslie is a super horsewoman. Of course so is Bettina…

[Kyzteke]

@mrs.smith;7275642

Jack Brainard is known as the Father of the flying lead change in the reining community. Like they say, if you can’t change leads, you don’t know “Jack”.

Seriously? Are you saying no one in the Western community knew how to teach flying lead changes before Jack? I find that really hard to believe…

What did they do before that…just cross canter their horses?

[Bluey]

[QUOTE=mrs.smith;7275642]
Hmmm, well one of my favorite western clinicians actually does have a pretty impressive record. That would be Jack Brainard. He is a fan of Baucher, and incorporates many aspects of French dressage in his training style, and is known as the Father of the flying lead change in the reining community. Like they say, if you can’t change leads, you don’t know “Jack”.

As for the lady factor, well, to me there’s nothing cuter than a 92 year old man on a stock horse performing 2 tempe changes :D[/QUOTE]

I din’t consider Jack Brainard one of the current or past crop of clinicians, not really Lynn Palm either, so would not have thought about him in this context.
Both are in a category all by themselves, I would say, didn’t really make a living out of clinics, but out of training, teaching and competing with a barn full of horses and students.
He is the one that started one of the Western Dressage associations.

[katarine]

agreed, Bluey…neither is a ‘clinician’ in the sense that CA, PP, BB are. or Dennis Reis, Ken McNabb, etc- all ‘clinicians’.

they both show, as does Stacey Westfall…so to me SW is a ‘trainer’, not a ‘clinician’, if that makes sense…same for Richard Winters. He competes, so to my brain he’s a ‘trainer’

[monstrpony]

It’s changing. Just ask the students taking horse-starting in the equine program at Montana State.

(there, I did it without even mentioning a name)

[mvp]

Re: Jack Brainard.

Awhile back, I asked here if he was All That And A Bag Of Chips, as the dude was giving a clinic new me (kinda) in the PNW.

I believe the consensus was that the man had done a lot to improve equitation, training and horsemanship in his generation…… but westerner riding then wasn’t All That And A Bag Of Chips. To wit: Folks weren’t concerned with leads, let alone a flying change.

I also remember in that venerable book, The Schooling of the Western Horse, the author explaining that one rode a circle as a really a bunch of straight sides with pivot-y turns in there-- an octagon, really.

WTF? I’ll give credit to people who improved that world, but that doesn’t mean I’d like to un-learn the modern stuff I have learned in order to pay homage.

And on a related note: The auto change in Hunter World didn’t exist when I was a child. It still surprises me-- either that we expect so many horses to do it…. or that back in the day, we thought a flying change was a big ol’ accomplishment for, say, the older junior rider and a pretty nice horse.

[Bluey]

[QUOTE=mvp;7275759]
Re: Jack Brainard.

Awhile back, I asked here if he was All That And A Bag Of Chips, as the dude was giving a clinic new me (kinda) in the PNW.

I believe the consensus was that the man had done a lot to improve equitation, training and horsemanship in his generation…… but westerner riding then wasn’t All That And A Bag Of Chips. To wit: Folks weren’t concerned with leads, let alone a flying change.

I also remember in that venerable book, The Schooling of the Western Horse, the author explaining that one rode a circle as a really a bunch of straight sides with pivot-y turns in there-- an octagon, really.

WTF? I’ll give credit to people who improved that world, but that doesn’t mean I’d like to un-learn the modern stuff I have learned in order to pay homage.

And on a related note: The auto change in Hunter World didn’t exist when I was a child. It still surprises me-- either that we expect so many horses to do it…. or that back in the day, we thought a flying change was a big ol’ accomplishment for, say, the older junior rider and a pretty nice horse.[/QUOTE]

Me too.
In my day, hunters had simple changes, not flying changes.
That was the realm of higher dressage levels.

[Kyzteke]

[QUOTE=mvp;7275759]

I also remember in that venerable book, The Schooling of the Western Horse, the author explaining that one rode a circle as a really a bunch of straight sides with pivot-y turns in there-- an octagon, really.[/QUOTE]

I think I had that book about a zillion years ago…by Monte Foreman, right (hopefully this time I got the guy’s name right…).

[mrs.smith]

mvp, I might have missed the gist of your post, but The Schooling of the Western Horse was by John Richard Young. I have it, and it is dated. It is not based on any kind of dressage or flat work as we know it.

Jack Brainard schools for the flying change by concentrating on getting the horse straight, then asking for it while riding in straight lines, not circles. It was a new concept for me. I have his book, If I Were to Train a Horse and it is very much so along the lines of French style dressage. I found his method of timing the cues to the position of the horse’s feet to be very helpful.

But, you and Bluey are both correct that you can’t really compare him to Clinton Anderson and his ilk, as he was first and foremost a horse trainer and breeder. I more or less threw his hat in the ring for fun.

Here’s a video of him and Eitan doing basic dressage. For some reason, I still think he’s cute

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1XihCp1pg9I

and now back to your regularly scheduled thread

[Kyzteke]

[QUOTE=Bluey;7275723]

He is the one that started one of the Western Dressage associations.[/QUOTE]

I just read somewhere that Eitan (using his first name to be cool…but also because I can’t spell that last name…;)) trademarked the term “Western Dressage.”

As for competition, some of these folks started out competing. PP rode saddle broncs, then (supposedly) won a big reining competition on a mule.
CA competes in reining I hear, and BB does Californio events.

But I agree that none of them had the success in the competition arena that they have as clinicians. I would pay big $$ to see Linda P. in a dressage ring…she would get creamed!

[Bluey]

I too have his book somewhere.
Once I was looking to buy a horse in his barn one of his long time students had for sale, but the horse didn’t quite fit what I wanted.
That is all I know about him, other than reading here and there that he did this or that.
I think he was one of the first ones that started the NRHA, if I remember right.

[Bluey]

[QUOTE=Kyzteke;7275793]
I just read somewhere that Eitan (using his first name to be cool…but also because I can’t spell that last name…;)) trademarked the term “Western Dressage.”

As for competition, some of these folks started out competing. PP rode saddle broncs, then (supposedly) won a big reining competition on a mule.
CA competes in reining I hear, and BB does Californio events.

But I agree that none of them had the success in the competition arena that they have as clinicians. I would pay big $$ to see Linda P. in a dressage ring…she would get creamed![/QUOTE]

I am not sure, but for what I have read, posted by those that were there, PP was a middling not very good competitor at horse shows and the mule class was a fun class, not any “big reining class”.
I don’t think he would have won a reining class, but what do I know.
When I saw him riding, he didn’t know how to handle a horse in the proper way to do any reining with it.
Coke bottle spins just would not have cut it.

I have heard he has the past few years been competing in cutting and maybe working cowhorse, that requires some reining, so maybe he has learned to rein.

What he is good is at marketing and demonstrations, and has built a real empire out of that.
The horsemanship part is a bit weak, I would say, other than what they invent around their own ideas, some of it basic, some a bit out there.

I don’t think that what they do is geared to any kind of traditional riding or competing, because it lacks the technical knowledge you need for that.
See what they teach as “dressage” as an example.:rolleyes:

That said, I don’t know what they have been doing the past couple of years in their new video programs, so who knows what they are up to now.

[katarine]

pat and the Mule - the back story…
Here are the facts as I know them:
Pat’s claim on his website:
“He nearly won the 1983 Snaffle Bit futurity on a mule (Cissy) and this resulted not only in a training career boost but a rule change banning mules from the competition! Pat was invited back the next year to give a demonstration with a mule doing the same reining pattern but this time without a bridle!” http://www.parelli.com/info_page.php?page=...arelli&t=OnePic

From the Western States Horse Expo Hall of Fame website where Pat was inducted in 2006:
“Pat came very close to winning the 1981 NRCHA Snaffle Bit futurity on a mule named Thumper, which resulted not only in a training career\ boost but a rule change banning mules from the competition. Pat was invited back the next year to give a demonstration with a mule doing the same reining pattern, but this time without a bridle!”
http://www.horsexpo.com/html/abouthall.html

Note the discrepancy in years competed and mule names.

Some interested parties on the rec.equestrian newsgroup report:

"A call to the NRCHA offices led to the following information from their records:
Pat Parelli competed in the SW Futurity in 1982 and in another event in 1978. In 1982 he entered Doc N Chex in the SBF and also rode King Gary Linx at that event (both are horses). In 1983 (the year in question and as cited on his website), he rode a QH named King’s
Dynamae in the SBF.

From 1974 to 1983 Pat Parelli did not finish in the top 5, 10 or 15 of the Snaffle Bit Futurity of the NRCHA according to published and
computerized results per their staff."

“Lyn Anderson (NRCHA competitior and Big Hat) says Parelli competing on a mule at the NRCHA Snaffle Bit Futurity is “an urban legend” and
totally false. He did compete on a QH in 1983, but was no where near “almost won” placings.”

Please resolve this discrepancy. It is a major concern for integrity that this claim is made so blatantly when it appears from available data that it is untrue.

I invite you to either respond to this email or get online with the rec.equestrian newsgroup to clarify your claims. At minimum, please delete this claim from your website until such time as a verifiable claim can be made.

I look forward to hearing from you with a clarification.
Thanks,

Dan Hogg
Response from parellis crew about the untruth…

edited down response…
quote: was pleased and surprised to receive, just now, a reply, repeated
below in its entirety:

Dan,

Thank you for taking the time to e-mail us! I was unsure of the answer to your question so it was forwarded to Pat and Linda’s assistant who ran it by Pat and here is the response:

'Hi all,

I spoke to Pat about this and he directed me to the paragraph in his book where this misinformation may have stemmed from. I will include the quote and I’m hoping that it will be directed where it needs to go so that this can all be cleared up. I will put in caps the specific section that is important to note.

Thank you [Smile]

“One of the interesting things I did around this time was compete in a demonstration event called The Wild Bunch, at the 1978 National Reined Cow Horse Association Snaffle Bit Futurity in Reno, NV. This was a fun class where contestants dressed up as different characters and did wild things. The advertised prize was a million dollars cash. I entered as the Clovis Mule Days Queen - Pat Parelli in drag. RIDING THUMPER, THE MULE, I WON THE CLASS AND ACTUALLY MARKED THE THIRD- HIGHEST SCORE OF THE ENTIRE SHOW, EVEN BETTER THAN THE HORSES IN THE FUTURITY AND OPEN BRIDLE CLASSES. The crowd went nuts. The Wild Bunch WASN’T ONE OF THE NRCHA’S SANCTIONED CLASSES, BUT IT WAS ONE OF THE SNAFFLE BIT fUTURITY SHOW’S FAVORITE SPECTATOR CLASSES AT THE TIME.” ’

Read more: http://forums.horsecity.com/index.php?showtopic=43000453#ixzz2lnFqhWAv