[QUOTE=Wirt;7262645]
Regardless of your judgement of Ray from forty years ago, based on a bad example of a particular horse, the way in which those horses are worked, even the language in the video is practically word for word. All of the modern look of demo and clinics today can be traced back to the work of Ray. Right down to the saddles. Period. If you think I am wrong, you don’t know anything about Ray.
Ray always said he was the best student at his clinics. Ray experimented, and over the years learned from the thousand of horses he helped start. Using a line or not has nothing to do with it. Ray used his rope.
Keep in mind, at most clinics people bring all kinds of horses of all ages from all over, from all kinds of environments. It is like a can of worms to start with. But Ray got it all smoothed out, and got it to work, even with dummys who have never started their own horse. The horses in that video you posted were all raised on the same ranch, and a pretty even good bunch of horses. But the guy is totally Ray in every thing he says and does. No question about it. Its obvious you don’t know much about Ray Hunt.
Ray was a hand for hands. He was the real deal. He could ride anything as good as prca bronc rider in his day. He could climb on a horse that would make good hands pee their pants. You don’t even see those kind of horses these days. Of course it was Tom Dorrance who got him hunting for better ways. He went back to Tom for help a lot. His clinics and style was not meant at first for the general horse owner public. He was more about getting a corral full of raw colts going so they could get used. At the clinics, he was there for the horse, and if you could 't take the heat, you were in the wrong crowd. But if you had the eagerness to learn and be right by the horse he was all for you. But he didn’t pander to anyone.
I know from your post you have a hard time seeing horses buck. Your claim is that they will learn to buck. If they buck, you done something wrong, you say.
I know your wrong at least ninety percent of the time. Ray got a lot of grief for "“letting horses buck”. But it just wasn’t a problem. He didn’t “make them buck” by chasing them around, which is your simplistic assessment. For you to say that starting colts was not something he did so well is laughable. He was the master at it, and most pale in comparison, or mimic him very poorly. Ray wasn’t perfect, but he lived his life true to himself and influenced completely several generations of horse handlers, including the fellow in the video.[/QUOTE]
Well, you don’t know who was here those first two years Mr Hunt gave clinics.
We were practically all cowboys that were working on ranches and learning more, the same that started the first ranch horse associations, not your backyard horse owner.
I already said that he must have done much good, sure acquired some heated defenders over the years that made an icon out of him, a horse god, heavily promoted in all kinds of horse magazines, so few dare say anything.
What he did, as Parelli and others did is get people wanting to learn and handling horses more and in better ways.
My problem with those clinicians, they rode by the seat of the pants, didn’t have other than the understanding of horses that gives, practically NO technical understanding of even the basics.
Another Mr Hunt story to make your hair curl, in the afternoon riding part of the program, this one cowboy on this small weedy filly, with a bosal and not that many rides on her, asked him how to get that filly to back.
Mr Hunt told him to take a good hold of the filly and RAN at her windmilling his arms wildly!:eek:
That filly of course didn’t back smoothly from it, but sold out sideways, trying to get away from that mad man coming at her so aggressively.
Mr Hunt told him “keep ahold of her, facing me” and ran at her again.
Same result.
He did that three times, by then the filly was not standing anywhere near that man, no sir and Mr Hunt told the cowboy he needed to work more on controlling her before she would learn to back properly.
Honestly, Mr Hunt, at that time, sure didn’t know how to give lessons or how to train horses in any sensible way he could teach others.
Don’t give me that “the student has to be ready”.:rolleyes:
I taught for many years and I got my teaching across, to humans and horses.
To say that is catchy philosophical phrase, but a cop-out in this situation, when we are talking about very basic things anyone should be able to understand, not top level performance nuances.
I was glad to hear he must have learned along the way, all of us do, eventually, if we live long enough.:yes:
As for Mr Hunt being able to stick a real rank bronc, well, what does that matter?
That still doesn’t make him an all around good horseman.
He may or not have been, if he can stick a bronc or not.
I know some not very good cowboys that can ride any and all and get the work done on them, but still are not at all good horsemen or much less horse trainers.
It takes way more than that to impress those that are training out there every day and making something out of their horses without needing to fight with them.
You are right, I don’t know Mr Hunt, just saw him in person those two years for two days, many years ago and have seen a few videos and read the stories.
I already said, like all those clinicians, they have helped teach people that there is more to horses than just get on and do something, that preparing them is a good idea, something the western world, other than in show venues, was not really good at doing.
HOW he and those men went about it, well, that I will say, was and is not always really what they think it is.
Like everyone else, we don’t know how little we know, no matter how much we may know.
One example given, the horses being made to, not prevented from bucking, something so very basic and reasonable, if you think about it.
Another example, the coke bottle spin, that some still don’t know today is not correct, will talk away saying how well their horse is spinning while all it is doing is swapping ends over the middle.
And so on …
I will say, more and more, as in the video I posted here, everyone is learning more, cross pollinating happening from all disciplines and yes, even what those men decades ago brought to the table is very valid, just not quite what some today want it to be, “perfct”.
