Ground Manners, Horsemanship, and Training Resources- Not Natural Horsemanship

[CarrieHH]

I’m looking for resources, books, videos, etc. that discuss horse training topics, groundwork exercises, and basic horsemanship that don’t fall under the natural horsemanship umbrella. I’m especially interested in resources that address ground manners (both what can be expected from the horse but also how the handler should be asking). Something with pictures would be a plus, as I’m looking for resources for my very visual, by the book, daughter. She is working with a trainer, but she is at the age where sometimes she needs to figure things out on her own (ie. she knows everything and the adults around her know nothing).

This is not a debate on natural horsemanship, but in my searches, that seems to be all I can find (the natural horsemanship crowd has figured out how to market well!). So I’m looking for suggestions to explore other resources and styles of training.

[Bluey]

You may add to your choices finding a local, well respected colt starter and have her learn from that person?

The basics are really the same basics for all sensible trainers that have nice horses with few problems.

I expect what you don’t want from the NH crowd is their showboating and a little rough around the edges handling in the name of expedience or just ignorance.
I happen to agree with you on that not being a good model for a kid to learn from, a kid that may not yet know how far you should go with a horse and better skills than needing to go there anyway.

Even if the current trainer is a good one, it never hurts to find others to understand there are different ways and all are ok, for some human, some horse, some time.

[lifeishorsesarelove]

Horsemanship is something that can be very hard to learn from a book. A good degree of what makes one good at instilling ground handling manners (and under saddle training too) is being able to read the horse in front of you and know when to keep pressing and when to release. You also have to learn how to leave your emotions at the door, which at the age she is at is damn near impossible (I still struggle with it sometimes at 22yo), which means she needs careful, quiet supervision so she doesn’t get herself into trouble.

You can’t learn that timing from a book or a video, which is why so many people try to follow Parelli videos at home and get in over their heads in the first place.

Your current trainer might be just fine, but it won’t hurt her to learn from other people too. I agree with Bluey that looking for a local colt starter is a good place to start. What she needs at that age is someome who will let her work hands on but lead her to the right conclusions on her own.

[mvp]

The folks who install the best ground manners, IME, are

1. Natural horsemanship folks and by that, I mean the real-deal people who actually start colts and work on tough horses rather than those who market DVDs and crash-courses to people.

2. Grooms at race tracks. Though those guys will accept slightly different things from their horses. We ammies want some of what they install and not others stuff. But they do get those fit babies pretty educated on the ground.

While books are OK, I think you might want to send your kid in the direction of YouTube videos. The first guy I’d suggest who fits the “not natural horsemanship” requirement is a European dressage trainer. Sorry, I can’t remember his name! I know he’s on YouTube. Or look up Warwick Schiller. He will look more like an NH guy, but I find his explanations clear.

The reason I suggest video is that the key to success here is the conversation between horse and handler. You have to see that in action. Even better, you need to have that conversation yourself with your horse, moderated by a good pro.

FWIW, I don’t think the solution to a kid who has a trainer, a badly-mannered horse on the ground (but you have a trainer?) and a kid who won’t listen to adults is *less adult" and more “learn on your own, but with the wrong medium.” The ability to train a horse cannot be learned from a book since the process is so dynamic and individualized! So I think that removing an adult that the kid has to listen to is a recipe for no training or unfair training for the horse. Again, I apologize for the unsolicited opinion, but this is a teachable moment where the kid needs more help from a good pro, not less. By that, I do mean that the kid should do the horse handling, with supervision and instruction. She needs to see the consequences of her decisions about the how to handle the horse. Presumably, her best thinking created a horse with poor ground manners. Let her see who a good pro can get from a horse with logic and good timing. Let her try to reproduce that, or do better without listening to that guy. It might be a bit of a PITA for the pro, but a good pro will appreciate that he/she is letting your daughter learn about the value of good horsemanship, too.

Best of luck to you all.

[LookmaNohands]

“The Ultimate Horse Training and Behavior Book” by Linda Tellington-Jones. Lots of videos and more here: http://www.ttouch.com/shop/index.php?categoryID=114

[Blugal]

@mvp you may be thinking of Tristan Tucker. You can watch some intro videos on his website to see if you like the approach before purchasing a membership.

I like that he will show a trained horse then one that isn’t, as well as student problems (they send videos in), so you can see how to handle issues that will crop up.

[NancyM]

Just for your information, the term “Natural Horsemanship” is derived from a method of training that uses the horse’s own natural responses to social situations and pressure to help the horse learn what it is that we want them to do for us. Reward for the correct response is part of this, and helping the horse find the “release” from pressure. The establishment of a partnership and a mutually respectful relationship between horse and trainer are key. People like PP made the term mean something else, using it as a religion for sale to make money, and to appeal to those who are looking for a guru to give them all the answers. Gotta give a guy credit for finding a way to market something to these people which was out there to learn from a variety of people already. The fact that there are enough of these people out there to make a guru money is the fault of coaches who only teach riding skills, and not training skills to clients.

The opposite of “Natural Horsemanship” is those who use whips and spurs and tight tie downs, and like to use “punishment” to try to teach a horse something, use fear and force to MAKE a horse perform. Both methods will work to different extents to different practitioners and with different horses, but one results in a horse and trainer who are on the same page and listening to each other and input from two brains working on solving a problem, and the other results in a “master/slave” relationship. Choose whichever appeals to you.

[CarrieHH]

@Bluey

You may add to your choices finding a local, well respected colt starter and have her learn from that person?

The basics are really the same basics for all sensible trainers that have nice horses with few problems.

I expect what you don’t want from the NH crowd is their showboating and a little rough around the edges handling in the name of expedience or just ignorance.
I happen to agree with you on that not being a good model for a kid to learn from, a kid that may not yet know how far you should go with a horse and better skills than needing to go there anyway.

Even if the current trainer is a good one, it never hurts to find others to understand there are different ways and all are ok, for some human, some horse, some time.

Thank you! The idea of finding a local colt starter is a good one. Her current instructor has a lot of experience starting her own horses, but is kind of phasing out of that aspect. Plus, her method of teaching ground manners, etc. just happens in daily life. So it is hard for my daughter to observe a lot of that without just being there full-time (although in the summers she almost is). And yes, I think you hit the nail exactly on the head about my concerns with NH and my daughter.

[CarrieHH]

@lifeishorsesarelove

Horsemanship is something that can be very hard to learn from a book. A good degree of what makes one good at instilling ground handling manners (and under saddle training too) is being able to read the horse in front of you and know when to keep pressing and when to release. You also have to learn how to leave your emotions at the door, which at the age she is at is damn near impossible (I still struggle with it sometimes at 22yo), which means she needs careful, quiet supervision so she doesn’t get herself into trouble.

You can’t learn that timing from a book or a video, which is why so many people try to follow Parelli videos at home and get in over their heads in the first place.

Your current trainer might be just fine, but it won’t hurt her to learn from other people too. I agree with Bluey that looking for a local colt starter is a good place to start. What she needs at that age is someome who will let her work hands on but lead her to the right conclusions on her own.

Great input, thank you. Yes, I think our current trainer is very good, but sometimes hearing the same thing from someone else or delivered in a different way can really help things click.

[Foxglove]

Although some people dislike him, his methods, etc --Clinton Anderson has a DVD specifically for kids and horses. I found his DVDs to be useful. Do I do everything he suggests? Nope --but I do like the sequencing and how like someone else pointed out about another DVD trainer --he uses different horses (highly reactive to very, very lazy, young and older) to demonstrate his lesson. There’s a second on “handler mistakes” which I also found useful since I pretty much do all of them, then wonder why my horse isn’t responding the way his does.

[Guilherme]

@CarrieHH

I’m looking for resources, books, videos, etc. that discuss horse training topics, groundwork exercises, and basic horsemanship that don’t fall under the natural horsemanship umbrella. I’m especially interested in resources that address ground manners (both what can be expected from the horse but also how the handler should be asking). Something with pictures would be a plus, as I’m looking for resources for my very visual, by the book, daughter. She is working with a trainer, but she is at the age where sometimes she needs to figure things out on her own (ie. she knows everything and the adults around her know nothing).

This is not a debate on natural horsemanship, but in my searches, that seems to be all I can find (the natural horsemanship crowd has figured out how to market well!). So I’m looking for suggestions to explore other resources and styles of training.

First, read Xenophon’s texts “On Horsemanship” and “The Cavalry Commander.” These were written in about 250 B.C. but are absolute classics. Read both (even if you don’t want to join the Army ). They are very short but very valuable. They are free on line from multiple sources.

Get Common Sense Horsemanship by Vladimir Littauer. Very classical, very useful. He has a seven month “how to” program that is very, very good. It’s free here https://archive.org/stream/commonsensehorse010454mbp/commonsensehorse010454mbp_djvu.txt Read it and you’ll likely want to get a hard copy. It’s worth way more than you’ll pay for it!!!

If this is for your daughter then get the hard copy. Teach her that books are Good Things and that no all wisdom resides in electronic media!

G.

[wsmoak]

If you want something very black and white with safety as a priority, take a look at Ed Dabney.

The videos were produced a while ago now and he has changed some things (substituting shoulder in vs. sidepass for example) but he is crystal clear about what the handler should do and how the horse should respond (and what to do if that does not happen.)

He’s a couple of hours away from me and I’ve done a clinic with him. The ‘Gentle Horsemanship’ thing is for real, and his focus is on understanding how the horse thinks so that when we enter their world we can communicate with them.

Case in point: If you are holding a horse and you need to do something to the other side of it, do you walk around its head, or do you ask the horse to step back, step over, and put you in their other eye? In the horse’s mind, the leader is the one who can make the other one move. And they check every day to see who that is.

Warwick Schiller’s ‘Principles of Training’ videos are good, but in his more recent work he’s on a bit of a journey himself and things are more fluid. Tristan Tucker would be my choice for what you describe, he has a more structured system.

[CarrieHH]

@mvp

The folks who install the best ground manners, IME, are

1. Natural horsemanship folks and by that, I mean the real-deal people who actually start colts and work on tough horses rather than those who market DVDs and crash-courses to people.

2. Grooms at race tracks. Though those guys will accept slightly different things from their horses. We ammies want some of what they install and not others stuff. But they do get those fit babies pretty educated on the ground.

While books are OK, I think you might want to send your kid in the direction of YouTube videos. The first guy I’d suggest who fits the “not natural horsemanship” requirement is a European dressage trainer. Sorry, I can’t remember his name! I know he’s on YouTube. Or look up Warwick Schiller. He will look more like an NH guy, but I find his explanations clear.

The reason I suggest video is that the key to success here is the conversation between horse and handler. You have to see that in action. Even better, you need to have that conversation yourself with your horse, moderated by a good pro.

FWIW, I don’t think the solution to a kid who has a trainer, a badly-mannered horse on the ground (but you have a trainer?) and a kid who won’t listen to adults is *less adult" and more “learn on your own, but with the wrong medium.” The ability to train a horse cannot be learned from a book since the process is so dynamic and individualized! So I think that removing an adult that the kid has to listen to is a recipe for no training or unfair training for the horse. Again, I apologize for the unsolicited opinion, but this is a teachable moment where the kid needs more help from a good pro, not less. By that, I do mean that the kid should do the horse handling, with supervision and instruction. She needs to see the consequences of her decisions about the how to handle the horse. Presumably, her best thinking created a horse with poor ground manners. Let her see who a good pro can get from a horse with logic and good timing. Let her try to reproduce that, or do better without listening to that guy. It might be a bit of a PITA for the pro, but a good pro will appreciate that he/she is letting your daughter learn about the value of good horsemanship, too.

Best of luck to you all.

Thank you! And don’t worry about unsolicited opinions…I posted on a public forum so I am purposely opening myself to all opinions:).

The grooms on a racetrak are a good suggestion. We don’t have one super close, but in the summer that might be an option. And I agree, the videos would be preferable, but I’m open to any suggestions of possible resources. If you happen to remember the European dressage trainer on YouTube, please let me know.

Also, I appreciate your “unsolicitated” opinion, and I completely agree. I definitely don’t intend to lessen her interaction with adults. And honestly, her pony has pretty good ground manners. He didn’t come to us that way, but our trainer helped us work through a lot of issues while he was boarded at her place. However, we brought him home to our place a few months ago, and I’m seeing a degradation in his ground manners. He’s a pony, and he’s constantly testing that line of “do I really have to do what you tell me”, and she lets him get away with it. And all of the reminders by me to do what her trainer taught us, doesn’t do a bit of good and I swear, sometimes result in the opposite outcome (my daughter is every bit as bull headed and stubborn as her pony;). So I was thinking finding some other resources that she could go through on her own, might help reinforce and maybe clarify what she needs to be doing. We also don’t have the ground manners issues when we take him to our trainer’s place for riding lesson, so she doesn’t always know what we need help with. However, I think I will talk to our trinaer about setting up some sessions just to work on groundwork, manner, etc.

[CarrieHH]

@LookmaNohands

“The Ultimate Horse Training and Behavior Book” by Linda Tellington-Jones. Lots of videos and more here: http://www.ttouch.com/shop/index.php?categoryID=114

Thanks for the suggestion, I’ll check it out.

[CarrieHH]

@Blugal

@mvp you may be thinking of Tristan Tucker. You can watch some intro videos on his website to see if you like the approach before purchasing a membership.

I like that he will show a trained horse then one that isn’t, as well as student problems (they send videos in), so you can see how to handle issues that will crop up.

Thank you, I’ll defintley take a look at his stuff.

[CarrieHH]

@NancyM

Just for your information, the term “Natural Horsemanship” is derived from a method of training that uses the horse’s own natural responses to social situations and pressure to help the horse learn what it is that we want them to do for us. Reward for the correct response is part of this, and helping the horse find the “release” from pressure. The establishment of a partnership and a mutually respectful relationship between horse and trainer are key. People like PP made the term mean something else, using it as a religion for sale to make money, and to appeal to those who are looking for a guru to give them all the answers. Gotta give a guy credit for finding a way to market something to these people which was out there to learn from a variety of people already. The fact that there are enough of these people out there to make a guru money is the fault of coaches who only teach riding skills, and not training skills to clients.

The opposite of “Natural Horsemanship” is those who use whips and spurs and tight tie downs, and like to use “punishment” to try to teach a horse something, use fear and force to MAKE a horse perform. Both methods will work to different extents to different practitioners and with different horses, but one results in a horse and trainer who are on the same page and listening to each other and input from two brains working on solving a problem, and the other results in a “master/slave” relationship. Choose whichever appeals to you.

Thank you. I have a background in dog training, and the concept of pressure release, the 4 quadrants of learning, etc are very familiar to me and “natural”, for lack of a better word. However, the bit of exposure I’ve had to natural horsemanship encompasses more of the dominance, fear, tie-downs, etc. that you mention as being part of the other camp. I realize that it is the labels that cause the problem, and not everything in the natural horsemanship genre is created equal. However, because of the issues of labels, and such differing presentations and methods by trainers who all classify themselves as following natural horsemanship, I’m on the hunt for other resources to look into as well.

[CarrieHH]

@Foxglove

Although some people dislike him, his methods, etc --Clinton Anderson has a DVD specifically for kids and horses. I found his DVDs to be useful. Do I do everything he suggests? Nope --but I do like the sequencing and how like someone else pointed out about another DVD trainer --he uses different horses (highly reactive to very, very lazy, young and older) to demonstrate his lesson. There’s a second on “handler mistakes” which I also found useful since I pretty much do all of them, then wonder why my horse isn’t responding the way his does.

Thank you. That is exactly the type of resource we need, especially the handler mistakes. Maybe we will check them out and go through them together with a critical eye.

[CarrieHH]

@Guilherme

First, read Xenophon’s texts “On Horsemanship” and “The Cavalry Commander.” These were written in about 250 B.C. but are absolute classics. Read both (even if you don’t want to join the Army ). They are very short but very valuable. They are free on line from multiple sources.

Get Common Sense Horsemanship by Vladimir Littauer. Very classical, very useful. He has a seven month “how to” program that is very, very good. It’s free here https://archive.org/stream/commonsen…54mbp_djvu.txt Read it and you’ll likely want to get a hard copy. It’s worth way more than you’ll pay for it!!!

If this is for your daughter then get the hard copy. Teach her that books are Good Things and that no all wisdom resides in electronic media!

G.

Thank you for the suggestions! We love step by step, how to programs (and books;).

[Where_sMyWhite]

I might also suggest books, etc by Mark Rashid.

There’s natural horsemanship and then there’s ‘natural horsemanship’.

Any method of training can be over “applied”.

If ‘natural horsemanship’ is the marketing message, I’d be inclined to either stay away or approach carefully. A training who trains to be compatible with how horses learn and interact with their world, that’s fine.

Remember that a horse is not a dog and perhaps some of how you might train a dog will apply to a horse, but not necessarily. Two completely different species

[CarrieHH]

@Where'sMyWhite

I might also suggest books, etc by Mark Rashid.

There’s natural horsemanship and then there’s ‘natural horsemanship’.

Any method of training can be over “applied”.

If ‘natural horsemanship’ is the marketing message, I’d be inclined to either stay away or approach carefully. A training who trains to be compatible with how horses learn and interact with their world, that’s fine.

Remember that a horse is not a dog and perhaps some of how you might train a dog will apply to a horse, but not necessarily. Two completely different species

Thanks. Yes, dogs and horses are definitely different, which is why I always feel completely out of my element!!