Natural Horsemanship is not a bad training system when done correctly. Just as dressage, jumping, hunter, reining, working equitation, etc training are not bad training systems when done correctly. Both training systems can have bad trainers resulting in bad training. So no I am not conflating bad training with a bad training system. I’ve seen bad training and confused horses not only in the NH training system.
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In my opinion you are conflating them. Almost nothing good comes out of NH that is going to be useful to a dressage horse or a dressage horse trainer or rider.
It’s a crock set up to gather money from idiots who are not willing to spend time learning traditional methods, are afraid of their horse/s, have no clue, or have no access to good trainers, prefer the word “natural” or all of the above.
Yes, there are some people who sort of make parts of it work for some things. There are far more who glom onto it like the holy Bible of Horsemanship and completely ruin their horse’s for anything but more of the same crock.
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Sorry you have had no success with NH. I have and I ride dressage at the FEI level with a BNT with sport breed horses. My BNT and my NH trainer’s training systems are complementary to each other. Both respect each other. My NH trainer has worked with many high level riders and BNT’s across many disciplines. You don’t like it then don’t use it. All training systems have those “glom onto it like the holy Bible of Horsemanship”.
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I do a lot of different stuff.
Absolutely ground work in hand work liberty training is of use to any horse in any discipline. A little bit more would help save a lot of sport horses from soft tissue injuries being longed like maniacs to blow off steam.
That said you need to be constantly aware of the end goal, and not teaching things on the ground that will interfere with riding
My big pet peeve is “disengaging the hindquarters.” Western trainers love it as a safety button because it throws the horse on the forehand and makes them stop. But that’s not how you want a dressage horse to move or stop
Also if you have a dressage talented horse or have gone aways with lateral work, it stops working. My big Paint knows enough lateral work that if she loses her mind in hand, she can gallop around you in shoulder in 
and shifting haunches doesn’t throw her off balance. The Lusitano x project horse likewise, her balance is naturally so good. Last thing I want is to teach either of them to fall in their inside shoulder.
So I just stay away from all of that.
My Paint was shanked and rattled one time at a ground work clinic (she did need a correction) and now backa up with a wiggly finger. The Lusitano x came with a run back sit down wave her hands in the air and scream reaction to things, so I was super careful about teaching backup as a voice and cue thing. I had to stop a friend from trying to “move her feet back” as a reaction to nibbling. I said you can just poke her in the cheek and that will get her to stop, but don’t ever discipline her by sending her backwards.
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Not at all. My “disdain” for NH stems from the fact that people treat it like a discipline, e.g., dressage, h/j, western, etc. It isn’t. Good horsemanship is good horsemanship. Working with your horse on the ground, and gaining his trust is not new. Parelli is a sideshow act, not training. I have no issues with Clinton Anderson, Warwick Schiller, et al. But they are training western horses by and large. There is no place for teaching a horse to back away from you as a correction in dressage. (I also happen to hate that they train the horse to turn and face the handler on the lunge line or in a round pen, but YMMV)
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Honestly my experience is that horses naturally turn to face you when they halt at liberty, and the job is teaching them to halt facing in the desired direction of travel.
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x 1000.
The marketing of stuff that horses do that should be trained completely differently as “NH” ““training”” is such a complete load of garbage.
Yawn. How ever do institutions like the Spanish Riding School ever manage without NH? Clue - because they are not looking for shortcuts or gimmicks.
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I’ll be the first to admit I have no love for the gimmicky NH gurus - Parelli and CA specifically - but I DO think that some of the concepts of other trainers are good. Warwick Schiller and Tristan Tucker come to mind, as well as your average decent colt breaker. Plenty of horses lack halfway decent ground manners and plenty of people skip groundwork all together - THAT is a huge gap in a horse’s education.
What I can’t get behind are the cult types, many of whom create anxious, over reactive horses due to the application of techniques without an understanding of nuance, or, well… horses. Add on the heavy marketing to newbie, undereducated, or otherwise scared-of-their-horses owners, and you create a Problem. You get horses that have been taught to fly backwards, have a hair trigger response to certain cues, and are generally on edge, because they don’t really understand what is being asked of them but they know they’ll be punished for a “wrong” answer.
Can one follow the basics of a NH program and produce good citizens? Yes, absolutely, if one ALREADY has a good understanding of horse behavior and training techniques. Can someone without that background subscribe to Guru Of The Day and produce a steady partner? Not always.
Anyways, this turned into a bit of a ramble. But I think it’s unfair to paint ALL kinda-Western-ish-groundwork-Programs with a broad brush, as some are actually fine, especially if the owner has access to other philosophies and can create a balanced program. Poor training is poor training, the problem with bad NH training is it actively works AGAINST what we typically want from a ridden horse.
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The horse has been taught to rear.
The owner will continue to do what they were doing and will establish rearing.
Do not work or EVER get on this horse. You are risking your life.
Just tell the owner you won’t work with a rearer.
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NH is just a term that Americans hung on to what used to be called plain old “horsemanship.” I would say that the European equestrian tradition assumes that riders will develop a basic level of horsemanship before they are allowed to handle a horse…especially at SRS where they are dealing with stallions.
Totally different than current people who are dissociated from livestock management and want to treat their horses like 1000lb poodles.
The fact that this horse’s owner is training “backwards” shows a level of cluelessness that is not the fault of what should be foundational ground training.
This is either a poor method of training or one person’s poor interpretation and execution of that training.
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Yeah, no. It’s not just a term that Americans hung on to what used to be called plain old horsemanship. It’s garbage geared towards the frou frou crowd.
Please show me anywhere, any instance, that the SRS uses the wiggling, swinging, or twirling of lead ropes, ‘disengaging’ the hind end, or ‘drive line.’
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Then we have different definitions of horsemanship. The expectation that the horse match footsteps, lead on a loose lead, yield space, ground tie and generally behave is foundational to the safe handling of a horse.
My bets are that the SRS stallions are taught from an early age to behave and there are specialized stallion grooms who know how to enforce proper behavior in the young stallions.
Unfortunately, all that knowledged about horsemanship has disappeared as horses faded from general “use” and mechanized equipment took over. All that rope twirling, carrot sticking is just a methodology developed by a few people who marketed themselves very effectively. Their marked was to people who were not very knowledgeable.
There is no reason to dis good horsemanship…and the tenseness shown at GP indicates that something is missing in the foundational training of some of these horses. So the holes are not just in the amateur world.
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oh i sure do!
I have not needed to teach any of my off the range mustangs to back up off me. Nor one of my domestics. I do not teach “respect” i earn it, with soft-skills.
(that said, I can and will instantly, impulsively react big and bad should the need arise. I’ve only needed to with two of my horses. One domestic who used to think he could run me over if pressured by another horse behind him and with him, it took a few tries. And one fresh little mustang ponymare who bit my head and honestly, i overreacted. In these cases, i didn’t think, i reacted…big and bad. “I’m an animal too!” )
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When I was a teen, NH didn’t exist but I spent all day with my horse. She learned all the NH ease of handling things from being on, off, trails, obstacles, etc. Some NH ideas would have been good for despooking but basically everything came organically.
When I returned to riding it was clear that as a working adult, I was going to have usually just an hour or two with my horse most days. I attended a “training for courage” clinic early on with a regional trainer. It was not gimmicky and was super useful. But I already had a notion how I wanted a horse to behave on the ground.
It turns out that I have decent timing on the ground and decent proprioception too.
However I’ve watched some of my adult rerider friends struggle with timing and proprioception and create unmanageable issues on the ground and in the saddle. They are going to get into trouble no matter what they do. And they love love love NH videos
When I returned I ended up Googling Parelli at some point and was bemused to see that just basic things were labeled and stacked into a curriculum. I would just assume that you could touch a horse anywhere, back them up or shift a haunch, keep their attention on you.
I would assume that in other worlds, grooms and colt starters are teaching theses basics in the normal scheme of things, and that it isn’t a big deal if the handlers are competent aware and consistent. The NH stuff took off with adult re-riders who lacked horseman competency, so weren’t able to apply what they learned sensibly.
That said, there are enough competition horses I see that could use some groundwork.
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The key to success in any riding or horse handling discipline.
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Can you walk with him in a circle? Similar to how you’d drive him forward if you were long lining? I used to get so many steps in this way. It’s a hell of a way to break in tall boots. I once got 4 miles in!
I actually think (as someone who has spent significant time in the learning field) this isn’t a bad thing. The challenges happen when people misunderstand these programs as either the “one true way” or as a substitute for quality help.
I strongly dislike Clinton Anderson because of his attitude, but he did a great job with his learning design.
And that matters - most equine teachers absolutely suck at it. It’s really hard if you’re either naturally talented or you learned things a long time ago to explain things to people because they are things you take for granted that you do.
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Skipping ahead a bit to say this doesn’t sound like NH, it sounds like really bad gimmicky NH. Actual NH really isn’t that much different from what everyone else does or wants. It sounds like this horse was never actually taught to lunge and just doesn’t understand it.
If you do continue working with the horse, you will just have to be the one to teach him. If you don’t know how to teach (or reteach) a horse to lunge, that’s a different story. The biggest thing is to just keep asking calmly until you get the response. I.e. if the horse is facing you, you point the lunge line left to get the horse to go to the left and ask him to walk on but he just starts backing up, just go with him and keep asking in the same calm manner. I promise you he will eventually at least think about going and then you stop and reward/praise. If you quit asking while he’s backing up, you have only reinforced that backing up was the correct answer. This does not go against NH either, I can and have lunged all types of horses, from dressage horses to hunters to completely unstarted horses to cow horses taught CA or PP, this way.
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This. I have one who was a school horse that thinks that people will give up if he backs up. I just go with him, and eventually he complies with a really grumpy shake of the head (I swear, he swears at me). He gives up on that process a few longing sessions in, but with time off we have the same effect, every single time.
Horses are so quick on that release of pressure memory. Even riders who come here and are fairly good at riding normally, I have to teach them that with greenies especially, if you stop insert-whatever-you-were-doing when they do whatever-they-are-doing they’ve made that association and it’s fast and hard to undo. R+ works too, but it takes a few more repetitions in my experience than the release of pressure which, depending on the horse, is really strong.
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This is how mine longe. And when on a lead, they walk next to me and match my feet, often times with the lead rope over their neck or otherwise not used to help control it.
I find horses who barge past the signals of their handler dangerous. It doesn’t mean mine can’t be driven forward if I step toward their haunches in a forward direction, but if my body is telling them to stop, I want them to STOP. Anything less is unsafe. I got this from the quarter horse world and shoeing in showmanship classes, where very precise maneuvering and starting/stopping were required; I also had a horse who was dangerous for me when I got her, and required training to stop giving me bumps and bruises.
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