This. They are taught to ‘give the handler both eyes’ as a respect thing as far as I understand it. While I am not a Parelli fan, the whole concept of left or right brain is not for me, I do think that Warwick Schiller has some great training ideas that can be used across disciplines. I have used some of Warwick’s training approaches with one of my geldings with good success. That being said he he does NOT turn inwards to face me while lunging as I’ve been careful to maintain how I want him to stop.
Going back to Parelli horses; I knew of a lady who lived and breathed for the Parelli method and ended up turning a decent horse into a dangerous double barrel kicking monster. She would do the same things every SINGLE time she handled the horse included ‘sacking him out’ by flinging his saddle pad all over him. I think the horse got to the point where he absolutely hated what she was doing because it never changed or progressed. In the end he sent her to the hospital sadly and she sold him to a trainer who works with difficult horses. I think unfortunately in this case that whole Parelli method was a bad fit for horse and rider however it seems like that often becomes the case with a lot of horses who are parelli’d.
I am one that adopted one of those mustangs from the BLM. I had to take things slower than with a domestic horse, but the reward has been great. I always tell people she would follow me through fire, and that is probably not exaggeration
Totally agree. And I like Schiller, he is a good all around trainer. A couple of his videos with dressage horses make me laugh.
IMO, that’s not the Parelli method, that’s an ignorant (perhaps scared) misapplication of the method.
Where I think this goes really wrong is where lots of systems can go wrong-- folks don’t know when to quit and move on to something else. That can be wildly frustrating and/or demoralizing to a horse who trying hard to get the right answer and earn some peace.
The same problem stops me from going to horsemanship clinics taught by well-respected clinicians where the session is 3 hours long, and maybe you do two in a day. I’m not sure I’m ready to send a horse into that. I know I haven’t done anything to prepare my horse to stay attentive while I work on the fine intricacies of ground work for 3 hours at a stretch. When I have asked fans and participants about this, I have not received a great horse-preserving answer as to why they do it that way, or how to make that a realistic and positive experience for my horse.
As with those 7 games of Parelli infamy, and the reason for my tangent, I am pretty sure that experts don’t spend nearly the time getting their colts to disengage the hind end or back in a figure 8 or whatever that we’d do in a clinic. For this reason, I don’t think the training system if flawed; rather, I believe the delivery method-- in rare, big expensive weekend clinics or by DVDs-- is very bad.
Why did they do a double brand? One looks ghastly enough.
Gorgeous girl, big trot!
Well said. I know for fact the lady I previously mentioned went to a lot of clinics that had this type of format and were often 3 or 4 days in length while the horses were in the arena for most of the day only stopping for a lunch break for the humans. I think you’re correct in the delivery system flaws.
That and bad gouge. Like any other training system, without knowing the why, it will be horrendous.
Gestalt thank you! She doesn’t look like she would move well when she is untacked, but she is a much cuter mover than her looks would have you believe. Unfortunately she was 3 strike adoption horse. They brand them on the rump after they have been to 3 adoption events and not been adopted…which means bad things for the horse! However she was picked for the Extreme Mustang Makeover. She was a dropout (couldn’t learn fast enough), so the trainer pulled her from the competition and posted her for adoption or she would go back to the BLM. Thus how I came to be the unlikely owner of a little BLM mustang!
@WildLittleWren You definitely lucked out! I love her alert expression in the pic with you on her. She’s a nice package, I wonder why no one wanted her from the previous auctions. She moves big for her size, lovely mare. 
I actually like both brands. TAhe neck one reminds me of the Standardbred racing and Arabian horse freeze brands. The hind one reminds me of all the various “warmblood” brands out there. It’s nice to see AND know what you have.
I, also, find her very pretty. I am a BIG fan of bay horses–I’ve owned many.
Thank you both! I adopted her last March and it has been a long year of ups and downs but I let her tell me what pace she was comfortable at, and it has paid off in spades. She was rounded up as a yearling and sat in holding pens for 5 years 
But, she is now enjoying being spoiled and is such a great partner. She is very much a one person horse, but that is just fine with me!
I am hoping she will be a good ambassador for mustangs when we start showing dressage hopefully this fall or next spring. To remind people they aren’t all just western or trail horses! I board at a mostly western barn, and you don’t know how many people have laughed at me for riding her in english but I tell you what, she enjoys it and we have fun doing our thing.
The horse I’m complaining about seems to have been trained that ALL downward transitions involve hide-the-butt. Canter to trot isn’t so bad, but the idea of going from trot to walk without flinging her head in the air and turning to face me seems to make smoke some out of her ears. And of COURSE she has to do it to halt. Even when I’m on her she seems to need to swing her hindquarters way over in one direction or the other, head straight up.
I don’t blame parelli training for all of it, she spent some months at a hunter sale barn in her history and god knows what was done to her there. But it’d be a lot easier to get through her issues with trust and contact if every downward transition didn’t involve the spin/snort/stare.
How do you ask for your downward transition on the lunge?
What is your training plan to fix this?
To me, your horse is expecting to be yanked on the bit, hence the head tossing up. That you do so or not isn’t the point, but you need to fix it by using your other aids to do your transitions.
On the lunge, you need more contact to begin with. The lunge line should be straight and have some tension at all time, and then you could ask for a good downward transition by increasing the tension (by shortening the lunge line and : going closer to the horse who stays on its circle or having the horse spiral in.
And I mean shortening the lunge until you are at less than a meter from the horse (this can last for as many strides or big circles your want) or a 6m-8mcircle (this shouldn’t last for more than a few steps at the canter or trot as it is quite stenuous.)
The goal is to keep a good constant contact while doing the transition : it prevents the horse to jerk its head up and by getting closer to the horse, it helps preventing the butt turning.
Practice your transitions along the wall, horse on the rail going as straight as possible. The wall will help with the butt turning too.
No, they are just confused.
This is actually pretty spot on to what we are doing. With lots of voice aids of course. She really has gotten much better over the last few weeks, both undersaddle and lunging, but sometimes she reverts and it’s a bit frustrating to not react, take in the lunge line, and WALK, and WALK, and WALK. She’s definitely been hauled in and beat on at some point because she just KNOWS it’s coming. But it is not. I have all of the pets and none of the hits for her. Her upward transitions used to also be a head flinging, jump into the gait fiasco, but she is starting to push from behind and really come over her topline. Downward is going to be more of a challenge. She is very disconnected back to front and seems to loose track of what her hind feet are doing from trot to walk because she is so focused on getting her head up her a$$. I’m going to get her back worked on because there’s at least some tension there and probably some pain.
She is going to be pretty fancy when we get on the other side of this though! Lovely mover, super cute jump, pretty little head and 4 tall socks on a strawberry roan base. I’ll get some pics to post and you can all pick her apart and tell me why I should NOT buy a LITTLE, RED, MARE. But I’ll buy her anyway. She’s smart, and sassy, and every once in a while she decides she wants to trust me and she shoves her head in my armpit to cuddle and I love it!
Whatever the reason, they still suck to lunge.
My gelding that was started by a guy that trained with Ray Hunt would turn to look at me when I halted him. It was an easy fix, if he went to turn in and look at me I simply sent him on again. He learned the difference between being on the lunge line and not turning towards me, and being in the round pen and turning in. You can also use a second lunge line on the outside to stop the hips from swinging out.
I’m going to say it - the problem is with you, not your horse. Horses are so tuned into body movements that if you use consistent signals they will pick up what you are asking in a heart beat. Horses don’t want to work hard, so if you show them what is expected thru your body stance, they’ll learn it fast.
The more I learn how to subtlety communicate with horses the more I realize my riding success throughout the years didn’t come from me being a good rider, it came from having horses that were able to figure out what I was asking even tho I wasn’t always consistent and sometimes gave conflicting/confusing aids.
If you have the chance watch some videos of Warwick Schiller. I’m not putting you down or being mean, I get that teaching horses can be frustrating. But when I finally learned that the problems were me, teaching and learning with horses has gotten to be much more fun. I’m still a million lights years away from someone like Warwick.
I did Parelli for a bit and never had problems when I went back to “real” lunging. The horse should be able to read my body language and respond in kind…and she does. Sometimes, depending on the exercise, I still want her to “hide her hiney” and she does it. I also don’t lunge with side reins and will ask for change of direction in motion, at trot which involves drawing her toward me. She does it quite nicely and with correct bend. (I know…big gasp from the dressage community).
The biggest problem I have seen with Parelli is that a great many people have no idea of timing or tact. They are told to do it ‘X’ way with no idea as to why they are doing it. Then they are unable to read the horse or even modulate their request (either more or less pressure). There was a woman at my barn who was working on the 7 games. She couldn’t understand why her horse was trying to bite her and on the circling game would rear. Well, she would stand and be vibrating the stick constantly. That thing was always moving which left the horse guessing. The horse couldn’t ever figure out what she wanted and was always fixated on the vibrating stick. He was pissed about it and he let her know it. The handler couldn’t even begin to figure this out:mad:.
I did my Parelli phase, kept what I found useful and moved on. It shouldn’t be that hard to retrain…it takes persistence and patience. Yes, you have to retrain them. Without retraining, yes they will suck to lunge. Many have been over drilled but with consistency, they should figure it out.
Susan
I agree. Fixing this stereotypy-- and that’s what it is— isn’t too hard.
But I wouldn’t send someone who couldn’t fix this to yet another distant trainer and a video. IMO, that’s not the piece that will be needed. Speaking from my own experience, we all need to learn more body awareness and need some private- or small lessons where a watching expert can see us, see the horse and let us know how we moved or stood such that we gave the horse a signal we didn’t know we were giving. No substitute for private lessons along the way… at least for me.
I just got a horse in training yesterday that has a definite “join up” response on the lunge. The former owner (of 8 years) was there watching me lunge her and said, “She has done that since I got her. In all this time I couldn’t get her to stop.” I just laughed and said, “it’s an easy fix.” I got the mare to stop broadside to me, nice and square, twice in the span of about 2 minutes. As long as the Parelli horse in question hasn’t been over-schooled in the games, they can expand their training to dressage or any other discipline you choose. I think it’s fairly harmless and allows for a horse that really pays attention to its handler.
That said, I also run a “Parelli-free” barn! 
