You are welcome.
I really liked it and found it interesting.
I didn’t know how to put in words a good review of it.
You did an outstanding job.
That is what it is about and worth reading, especially for horse people.
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When I read this thread’s title I immediately thought of My Horses, My Teachers by Alois Podjaksky. Great anecdotes and solid, no nonsense basics anyone involved with horses can benefit from.
I also enjoyed Dressage 101(Jane Savoie), Ride with your mind (Mary Wanless) and Training the 3-day event horse and rider (Jimmy Wofford).
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I wanted to mention that the title of the book has significant meaning. The author took a quote from the Western horseman he worked with to illustrate his POV and I quote: “Look at it this way,” he said, gesturing to the left with his head while managing the rope. “Over here are the 'natural horsemen.” And often there is nothing natural about what they do. And over here," he nodded to the right, “are the, well, whatever the opposite is–the people who don’t take into account the horse and what its capabilities and tendencies are.” Bruce paused for a second, thinking. “There are lots of those guys, I guess. In the middle, though, are the horsemen.”
The author illustrates that there are no exact perfectly right or wrong ways of training in all the barns and ranch he went to. There are many good ways and he felt that he could take the pieces he liked the most from each of them. He called it “cafeteria training.” I thought that was the perfect description.
That is what so many of us on COTH talk about with training, the different approaches to teach horses things but taking into account their limitations and motivations. I know many here, myself included, cringe at the “natural horsemanship” title, because it so often includes people who are into natural horsemanship because they are afraid of actually riding their horses – there I said it…uh oh… sorry guys, that’s how it appears to some of us. Still, there are aspects of natural horsemanship tennets that have their rightful place in training that are beautiful and awe inspiring. All you have to do is google Tik Maynard on YouTube when he won the 2015 Thoroughbred Retired Racehorse Makeover Freestyle with Mr. Pleasantree and I defy you to watch without getting a little choked up at the partnership they achieve. ah, here you go:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=K6WYeUalQEc
I believe that most of us here at COTH are aspiring to be true horsemen/women so this book really will resonate with us.
Incidentally, I have no stock or affiliation with this guy or Trafalgar Square Books. I just love horses and riding and I always enjoy sharing things I find that I think are pertinent to our horse journey. I literally could not put this book down and devoured it in two days.
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Tik comes to give clinics at our barn several times a year.
I never participated with my mare but I’ve audited a bit and he looks like a really nice guy with no ego - quite refreshing.
Last time I watched he had riders jump a few low fences and halt by a chair on which there was a treat for the horse. (ponies caught on to it a lot faster than the horses!)
And it made me feel so much better since I’ve been doing just that for years with my Ottb mare, who gets quite hot jumping - when we jump out in the xc field I always let her graze after each jump, it takes her mind off of her usual shenanigans (taking off squealing and bucking after each fence). I just have to stay very balanced on her, when we go over a Novice / Training fence and stop dead to graze 3 strides out LOL. Works for us!
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I’m surprised that no one has mentioned General Chamberlin’s Training Hunters, Jumpers and Hacks or Gordon Wright. Oldies but still goodies. Chamberlin in particular was a master horseman whose likes we no longer see.
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Schooling and Riding the Sport Horse by Paul Cronin. It’s an attempt to update Littauer, though without The Captain’s wry humor.
Every few years I re-read A History of Horsemanship by Chas. Chenevix-Trench.
I just thumbed through my disintegrating copy of Heads Up-Heels Down. The last chapter covers the not so good ol’ days. For balking, “Let a footman stand behind you with a shrewd cat tied to the end of a long pole…”
Chamberlain should be required reading.
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The Schooilng of the Horse and Schooling for Young Riders by John Richard Young. There might be nits I would pick as I have become more educated in dressage, but his books most importantly emphasize the need to be a THINKING horse person and not always take things at face value.
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That cat quote was in Anderson’s book? A footman? That sounds more like something from a 17th century book, not Anderson.
Yes, the last chapter (“The Horse Again”) is a brief summary of what cruelties the horse has endured in the name of horsemanship, and the development of more humane methods. Anderson cites the cat cure from an Elizabethan era book called The Art of Riding and Training Great Horses (no author given).
Ah. Gotcha. I thought you were saying Anderson advocated it. LOL (Sounds like it might have been something from the Duke of Newcastle)
