this ^^^. I have seen this many times over the years. The worst case I had to actually ask the person to leave. Her horse was going to hurt her because she bought an unbalanced 4 year old that had 30 days of parelli so she thought he was good to go. I told her she needed lessons and he needed training not the carrot stick. She wouldn’t take my advice and left. Had to give the horse away a few months later when she couldn’t even get on him.
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Yep. What The Hell was the point???
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My opinion, when Linda came on board, the focus changed from training horses to horses as a prop to teach humans the new “life skills” modality, how to grow as a person, how to become assertive, etc.
When we horse people are looking for traditional horse angles, well, what they do doesn’t make sense, as it is not really about the horses but incidentally.
The horses don’t fare as well as they would with more sensible ways of working with them, as we can see by the horse’s reaction to their odd ways of handling them, the defensive resistances they display.
There are better ways out there, but in that program, they either are blind to them, or just don’t mind horses being uncomfortable, as long as their goals are achieved.
When it comes to their riding, I call that stick people, stiff beginner kind of riding, see Linda in that video link.
Still concerned that a traditionally trained, well respected instructor as Walter Zettl is supposed to have taught them for a bit, can’t see that there at all?
Makes me wonder what I am missing, so there is that.
I am sure they are very nice as people, mean well and are gracious and kind, just have their own ideas where they want to go with their programs and the horses in them, don’t need to care what any one else may think, especially when we don’t know “the rest of the story”, what we know is piecemeal only.
There are all kinds of experiences in life that suit all different kinds of people.
Some are attracted to what is taught there and that is ok.
That it doesn’t fit with what the rest of the world does with horses, well, it doesn’t has to.
They made it their special brand and a very successful one it has been.
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I have serious concerns about how the Parellis do what they are doing with their followers, especially those that spend a lot of money with them. I won’t enumerate here and unfortunately it is not illegal, as best I can tell. They are basically selling an idea in a way that is appealing to certain personality types. They bring followers into a program that uses emotion, both positively and negatively, to pressure them into spending more and more and more. It is not actually performance-based. The pressure is all psychological, and it works on the people they intend to attract.
It is an old formula that also works a charm in multi-level marketing and outright pyramid schemes. It’s done through manipulation rather than through successful accomplishment of an end (there is little to no genuine accomplishment in these schemes). Although the Parellis don’t have their followers formally selling product for them for promised compensation, they do count on them to encourage more followers among people they know. A huge part of their financial flow is Parelli-people bringing more people into the Parelli tent.
And in the end what they are selling does not work as promoted - just like many of the MLM & pyramid products. The lack of efficacy is proven over and over. But the followers don’t see that because they have become indoctrinated into the guilt aspect, that if it doesn’t work, the problem is you, never the product. It is absolutely amazing how quickly some people will adopt this concept and become followers (of anything, really).
Followers fully buy into the lore that the product is infallible and not to be questioned. Because the product is infallible, followers believe they must be greatly benefiting from it, even if the results aren’t always apparent. It’s not possible to reason with believers who are convinced that problems come from anywhere but the product itself. People who are vulnerable to these ideas will continue to perpetuate that belief on themselves, and many will even follow that logic into ruin. Some will wake up eventually. But there are always more to take their place.
That is why Pat Parelli’s public failures don’t discourage the true believers (some are still on YouTube). The blame always lies elsewhere. It’s why the believers are convinced by well-crafted videos like the one linked in a previous post. The videos use music and presentation to sell an idea and an emotion that isn’t really there in the performance. It never matters that the performance isn’t really there, because it’s the emotion that people buy into.
The formula works. Not on everyone, but on enough people to make a good living out of it.
Linda has her own loyal followers now and likely feels that she no longer needs Pat and his name. That is why the announcement now - it is time to break up the brand into two separate channels. How the post-divorce Parelli Nation works out will be interesting to observe. My guess is that they will self-divide into Linda People and Pat People. Personally I expect that each of the Parellis will each do more of the same things that each is doing now, but branded separately.
Just speculating, though. 
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I have serious concerns about how the Parellis do what they are doing with their followers, especially those that spend a lot of money with them. I won’t enumerate here and unfortunately it is not illegal, as best I can tell. They are basically selling an idea in a way that is appealing to certain personality types. They bring followers into a program that uses emotion, both positively and negatively, to pressure them into spending more and more and more. It is not actually performance-based. The pressure is all psychological, and it works on the people they intend to attract.
It is an old formula that also works a charm in multi-level marketing and outright pyramid schemes. It’s done through manipulation rather than through successful accomplishment of an end (there is little to no genuine accomplishment in these schemes). Although the Parellis don’t have their followers formally selling product for them for promised compensation, they do count on them to encourage more followers among people they know. A huge part of their financial flow is Parelli-people bringing more people into the Parelli tent.
And in the end what they are selling does not work as promoted - just like many of the MLM & pyramid products. The lack of efficacy is proven over and over. But the followers don’t see that because they have become indoctrinated into the guilt aspect, that if it doesn’t work, the problem is you, never the product. It is absolutely amazing how quickly some people will adopt this concept and become followers (of anything, really).
Followers fully buy into the lore that the product is infallible and not to be questioned. Because the product is infallible, followers believe they must be greatly benefiting from it, even if the results aren’t always apparent. It’s not possible to reason with believers who are convinced that problems come from anywhere but the product itself. People who are vulnerable to these ideas will continue to perpetuate that belief on themselves, and many will even follow that logic into ruin. Some will wake up eventually. But there are always more to take their place.
That is why Pat Parelli’s public failures don’t discourage the true believers (some are still on YouTube). The blame always lies elsewhere. It’s why the believers are convinced by well-crafted videos like the one linked in a previous post. The videos use music and presentation to sell an idea and an emotion that isn’t really there in the performance. It never matters that the performance isn’t really there, because it’s the emotion that people buy into.
The formula works. Not on everyone, but on enough people to make a good living out of it.
Linda has her own loyal followers now and likely feels that she no longer needs Pat and his name. That is why the announcement now - it is time to break up the brand into two separate channels. How the post-divorce Parelli Nation works out will be interesting to observe. My guess is that they will self-divide into Linda People and Pat People. Personally I expect that each of the Parellis will each do more of the same things that each is doing now, but branded separately.
Just speculating, though. :)[IMG2=JSON]{“data-align”:“none”,“data-size”:“full”,“src”:“https://www.chronofhorse.com/forum/core/image/gif;base64,R0lGODlhAQABAPABAP///wAAACH5BAEKAAAALAAAAAABAAEAAAICRAEAOw==”}[/IMG2]”‹
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What the actual F was that?! I hate to tell dear sweet Linda, but you can’t do dressage if your reins are floppy and you have zero connection to the bit . . . Wasn’t this about the time she conned poor Walter Zettl into being her ‘trainer?’ I never understood how that came to be.
I still remember the Parellis coming to EquiFest one year. I think he had about 10 riders in a small arena; only one had a helmet on. And I’ll never forget him looking at her, and then at the crowd, and saying “If you have to wear a helmet, you can’t ride.” He asked her to remove it. She refused. She continued on for the hour, having paid for it, but I don’t think he ever once worked with her.
As for Clinton Anderson - he came to EquiFest two years in a row, for a trailer-loading clinic. The first year, the demo horse was a cute little dark bay Arabian, stubborn as only Arabians can be and twice as smart as CA. At the end of the hour, that horse STILL wasn’t on the trailer, IIRC. The next year . . . ta-da! That cute little bay Arabian was back! CA looked at the horse, looked at the girl, looked at the trailer, then said, “Didn’t I see this horse last year?”
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I have a similar story about Ray Hunt, when he first went on the road giving clinics.
Not about loading, about starting a colt.
Not too impressed with those clinicians, really, although some really do a good job on the road of the horse colt starting shows.
I expect like every other out there, some are really good, some are best at promoting themselves, but are kings without clothes.
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Some of these trainers have useful ideas and techniques to share (some, not so much - I am not on board with Parelli, Pat or Linda). But as for the road shows, with one session of loading or riding a single recalcitrant horse, I have doubts about the true training objective having been fully achieved. If you know how, it is not that hard to get a horse to break down its resistance and comply in that one session. Part of it is what the trainer is likely teaching anyway - eventually the horse concludes there is no way out of the situation, and compliance is easier - but just this time.
So in my mind they did accomplish something in terms of working through resistance, but it is Step 1 of a journey with thousands of little steps. You can’t go from zero to fully-trained in one session. That didn’t happen. Tomorrow the horse will be just as skeptical of loading or being ridden, but approached in the right way it should be a bit easier to overcome the resistance and take another step forward.
I’m never sure what impression the trainer is trying to make on the audience. Some seem to want the audience to believe that they saw zero-to-fully-on-board, and you can only do this at home with your own horse if you subscribe to my expensive program. Brannaman (like him better) and others with less blingy presentations seem to be forthright that this is Step 1 of hundreds, and here is the direction to go in the future.
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I went to a clinic I will never forget. A guy came out to our agistment to put a horse on a float. 15yo me raved about him to Mum and he had a clinic at his place that included lunch. So we went.
People brought their own problem horses there that he had never seen before. They were in us with the audience and told us how amazed that they were. This was a last resort. He succeeded with each horse. He changed what he was doing when it didn’t work.
Magic. I still see it as horse magic decades later. Luckily I can learn by osmosis. I have used that training ever since. Every horse that comes here comes when calls and loads calmly.
No you haven’t heard of him unless I have posted his name on here. John Chatterton.
Yes I ride English.
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The instructor told them to demonstrate transitioning down canter-trot and trot-walk without using the reins. It’s not happening (which is why you couldn’t tell that is what they were doing 
).
The instant she and “her proteges” let go of the reins they have to grab the saddle. Her floating leg isn’t helping, either. (“Her proteges” are both wearing helmets. And may be riding better than she is, from brief glimpses. They are definitely not the main subject of the video.)
I doubt she would ever do this with an instructor who wouldn’t play along with her. She brings in quite the crowd, so I can see why some would do that.
In the video she’s the only rider without a helmet. Her headgear is a sun-visor. Indoors.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JnxBDsHI6cA&feature=share&fbclid=IwAR3zWa92vZoqb7-rjguG5YmtaONfjy9N2uJWDMv_mGRqwYInnxPChxjYjU8
This rejection of helmets really puts the seal on what a load of crap their program is, in my eyes. Trying to convince people that the Parelli way will make their horse safer and tamer than the Walmart “quarter horse”. It’s selling the idea, not the reality. You cannot train a horse not to be a horse. But they literally challenge ‘their people’ to put their lives on the line to prove their belief in the Parelli fantasy idea.
The one person I know who is a complete Parelli acolyte does have enough of a grain of sense to wear a helmet and a safety vest when she rides.
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I don’t understand a demonstration where it is supposed to be magical to do transitions on a loose to almost no rein. All my horses can do that. It’s not rocket science. Or Majyk. If they have one iota of training you don’t control a horse through the rein predominantly but rather your leg and body. Ya. Not impressed. At all. And all of mine are green.🙄
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LOVE this! I teach all my personal horses and some clients horses to self load, I can tell you that I have to be flexible in my methods based on the horse I am working with. Would love to know his method to add to my rolodex!
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He teaches face up which is different to Monty Robert’s Join Up. Join Up uses tiring out the horse so I do not class that as training. Face up requires skill of timing and teaches the horse to come to you and follow you.
Then they are taught to stand still so as they don’t turn to face you while you are grooming and tacking. They will do this without a halter in the end for grooming, bathing, tacking and untacking.
He uses a pull and release on the halter and praise. I also use the words uh uh instead of the pull.
Leading. They walk before you walk with a click, they halt before you halt when you say halt, they go back when you put a thumb on their chest and say back, later a small tug on the tail and back for unloading out of a float, and in sight of them finger waves side to side and the word back. Always 2 signals for back. You don’t want another horse trying to back out of a float when they hear the word back.
With this leading they are not following your feet.
So you call the horse they come to you, you click they walk, you walk to a gate and say halt, they halt, you walk to the gate and open it, you click, they walk through the gate. You say halt they halt. You close the gate and step to their shoulder and click they start leading with or without a halter.
You walk to the tack shed. You say halt, they halt, you go into the tack shed. They are standing in the same spot when you come out.
He teaches them to submit to the lead rope. In the end if you put the lead rope around the hoof and pull they should lift their leg and put their muzzle to their knee and stand there. So supposedly no breaking of leadropes if stood on. Yield the halter to fences and ober objects so if they ever get caught while tied and do something silly they won’t pull back.
The float you click the horse walks on you say halt they halt you close behind then tie. At the other end you untie, go behind and open. A small tug on the tail and say back, they back out.
To teach to load he only uses a halter and lead rope. They only get praise and understanding near the float. If they back away they get the pull and release away from the float. Near the float ask what horrible thing happened to them over there isn’t it nice here and praise. There is no hurry. He asks for a hoof on reward, back off reward, 2 hooves on reward. 2 hooves off reward. 4 hooves on praise. 4 hooves off praise. 2 hooves in. Praise. Back off praise. 4 hooves in. Praise back off praise. In the end you can put the horse on stop any where back 2 strides forward 4 steps, anything you want.
Spooky Object training is different from desensitisation. Desentisation done by Natural Horsemanship in my view is cruel. They add pressure and do not drop it. In the end the horse turns off, a lion could walk in the yard and the horse would not react.
This is why Suzie has a tb and flicks out the saddle cloth every morning and Dobbins does nothing. Suzie treats him with kindness. He switches back on. The next time she flicks the saddlecloth he pulls back breaks the lead and takes off. Suzie is surprised as he has never done that before. It is because he never saw it when he was switched off.
Spooky Object Training teaches them what to do if they get a fright. They are to stand still. He never uses plastic bags on the lunge whip to start. Some horses have been bagged and that is too frightening. He will start with some stones in a soft drink can and rattle it not even near them.
When they take off the can is dropped, so you release the pressure. Over where they went they get the pull and release, they are brought back and praised for standing. It takes a week or so but in the end you can pick those stones up quickly from the ground and to their face or touching their shoulder and they stand still. After that you can put different things on the whip. Throw a beach ball over under, etc, whatever you can think of. He rides the horses with an umbrella over his head.
Lunging you click they walk forward, you walk back 2 steps and you are in the position to lunge. Ask for walk, be happy when they walk do not say walk again. The same that you do not say halt again when they are halted. Same for trot and canter.
If they break then you crack the whip and flick behind and get animated until they go back in the gait they should be in. In the end they will stay in the gait without the lunger cracking the whip every stride.
After that you can ask for different trots and canters.
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Nice, especially considering that his first wife (and children’s mother) still has a GFM up for her rehab after a serious TBI incurred while riding.
And yeah, what is the deal with Linda and her visor? It’s like the 90’s called and they want their wardrobe back.
Maybe now that they’ve split, Pat will return to ranting against “dress-age” and humiliating its riders. Those jabs were present in all his early clinics.
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I found a video! I looks like his philosophies are very similar to Warwick Schiller’s regarding getting the horse’s trust: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ld8Gqdd10qA
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I could never figure out why dear old Walter Zettl bought into that. My hubby and I had Walter to our farm probably once a month for years and years (long before the Parelli stuff and before his book came out) and he gave good, consistent, typical German/type dressage lessons to us. Quiet, kind, systematic - nothing at all to raise your eyebrows about. He was just a decent chap with good knowledge. (Later on, he became a bit more flowery and complimentary when teaching his “housewives”) but I could still get him to leap off his chair and yell at me when I screwed up something…which I considered a great compliment.
It wasn’t “what shiny boots my dear” or “what a lovely tail he has” which later on were his way of saying…whatever - I get paid even if you don’t listen.
But at one point he started telling us what great horsemen the Parelli’s were and that we all should watch and learn what they did and they were a great example. Hubby and I had watched a couple of their things and thought it was classic BS from start to finish. I thought he was pulling our leg and would explain the joke later on.
And I was kind of offended that Walter suddenly didn’t think we were looking after our horses very well. (Both of us have been around horses for 40 plus years…so we aren’t feeding them donuts for breakfast and Cheerios for lunch)… anyway… that was the end of Walter coming to our farm. He got so weird on the subject of the Parellis!!!
I still have no idea why this appealed to him. I have to think he was genuine in his admiration for them but it baffles me. He forgot more about horses than either of them will ever know.
When I saw Linda jumping a horse (no helmet naturally) over an unsecured metal tube - I thought she should be prosecuted for criminal negligence. So friggin dangerous - and why???
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seriously - my jaw dropped. Like what the actual hell is going on? None of those horses were guided by weight cues, they were just doping around on a loose rein with no guidance or control. I particularly cringed when she almost plowed into her “student”. Good Lord it was bizzare. Putting white polos on a horse does not make you a dressage rider.
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The O’Connors were Parelli clients for a while, also. Never did figure that one out either. Supposedly they gave him up when they found their horses became to dependent on waiting for instructions for every little thing they did.
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All I can think is no one is immune from drinking certain kinds of kool-aid. Hey…sell me any kind of skin care product that knocks 40 years off (and returns me to the fetal skin state) and I’m waving my money at you.
Commercialized NH doesn’t do it for me. But I take bits of knowledge from all sorts…it’s not all bad - if it works and it’s kind then OK…but the Parelli stuff is mostly whackadoodle to seriously bad to be honest.
I personally think it appeals to middle aged ladies who don’t really want to ride but want to be involved with horses and able to say they do things with them and don’t mind spending money to join the "club ".
Which is why professionals getting on board with this totally baffles me.
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People who are gung-ho on the NH style of training are the same type who are enthusiastic about “positive-only” or “force-free” dog training. Both camps seem to attract the same personalities and with the same level of effectiveness in training.
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