Hey, there Eventingland. I just finished reading In Service to the Horse by Susan Nusser. I had no idea the O’Connors were ever involved with Pat Parelli.
The book doesn’t cover how they came to work with them or how their association ended. Anyone know the story?
Just curious! 
Does Karen O address this in her book? Anyone?
I remember when that was going on…I have no idea how it started, but I always thought it was probably more of a marketing gimmick than anything else. IIRC, they were doing Parelli/O’Connor clinics for about $8k a weekend.
Yep, here is a thread: http://www.chronofhorse.com/forum/showthread.php?35694-OMG!!-O-Connor-Parelli-stuff
But I recently overheard a very interesting discussion about natural horsemanship at a HT…when I looked back it was KOC & some other presumably UL rider. Then I noticed a plethora of riders in rope halters & leads. They are everywhere those halters…for those that aspire to be on our Team it seems. Hey, I have a rope halter in my trailer too but it’s not my ‘daily driver’
They still use some of the stuff to introduce young horses to water, ditches, banks and other x-country jumps. Cathy Wieschhoff is one of their camp instructors and has ridden with them for years. She starts her young horses this way, too.
I guess that they feel that if the horse understands the question, without having to deal with the riders weight, then they will better understand it, when the rider is in the tack?
[QUOTE=Auburn;8279098]
They still use some of the stuff to introduce young horses to water, ditches, banks and other x-country jumps. Cathy Wieschhoff is one of their camp instructors and has ridden with them for years. She starts her young horses this way, too.
I guess that they feel that if the horse understands the question, without having to deal with the riders weight, then they will better understand it, when the rider is in the tack?[/QUOTE]
This is a common thing amongst most trainers I’ve ever worked with. Denny Emerson posts about this on FB often. It’s the ‘natural horsemanship’ marketing that sets it a step above, well, just regular good horsemanship…
grabs popcorn and Diet Coke, settles down in comfy chair:winkgrin:
To be honest, I really liked the book and want to pass it along to my friend who also rides my horse. This friend is a NH follower, but I am not, and I had to gently tell her not to play the games with my horse or really introduce him to anything new like that, since he has such a solid foundation.
I don’t want to hand her the book without being able to say, “There’s some NH in here, but the O’Connors severed their relationship with Parelli when…”
Was the business relationship ever officially “severed”? Or was it just kind of gradually phased out and allowed to fizzle away with the realization that most serious eventers and competitive riders aren’t likely to become parelli converts?
Truthfully, some of the NH stuff is useful, but those parts aren’t any different from what good horsemen have been doing for many many years … And the rest is largely gimmickry.
contact them/ OCET directly
OCET Why don’t you write them at OCET:)?. or, PM me and I will send you their email?
I came across this video of the O’Connors training a horse using a carrot stick.
This was a thread from 2002, when it all started
http://www.chronofhorse.com/forum/showthread.php?35694-OMG!!-O-Connor-Parelli-stuff
I’m a trimmer, and could write a book on horses ruined with it. Not natural horsemanship, which in my opinion is good basic horsemanship, you know, back when horses were taught manners?
The problem I see with the “games”, is that if you don’t understand the theory behind what they are doing, all you end up with is a pushy, demanding horse. I’m all for people “doing” something with their horse, even if it’s not riding. But horsie still needs to abide by the RULES, not learn to set them.
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