[QUOTE=7HL;6320369]
The primary emphasis on Monty’s training is “Join-Up”. Running the horse in circles in a high walled round pen untill the horse submitts and joins up with the trainer.[/QUOTE]
You didn’t read the book, did you?
[QUOTE=Sonesta;6319189]
This is a very good point. MR is definitely good at what he does and has tons of experience. So, it might have been more fair to have a trainer OTHER than MR, but using his methods, train those horses - otherwise, if you use MR, then you should for the BHS trainer someone equally well experienced and known. And even then, you are back at “Horses trained by X did better than horses trained by Y.” But hard to generalize to the technique itself .
To generalize, I think you’d need at least 7 groups of horses: 3 groups being trained by different trainers (at various levels of experience) using MR techniques, 3 groups being trained by different trainers (at various levels of experience) using BHS methods, and a control group.[/QUOTE]
While a control group is always ideal in a randomized controlled trial, I don’t think it makes sense in this case. What would the control group consist of? In theory, it would include randomly assigned horses that received no training. If you are measuring heart rate or cortisol levels in general this might work, but as the dependent (outcome) variable is performance under saddle, the horses are required to have some sort of training, rendering a control group irrelevant.
I do think including cortisol levels would be a valuable and interesting additional objective measure. While the scores given by the judges are subjective, this seems like a legitimate way to measure performance, as this is relevant to judgment of performance in the “real world”. The suggestion someone gave of using speed for completing a course as an objective measure seems invalid to me, as this is not a measure of what the study was designed to test (superior “training” and “performance”). Time taken for a young horse to complete a course may have nothing to do with superior performance, in my mind.
While 7 is quite a small n and a larger sample would be ideal (particularly as the outcome variable is subjectively scored), one has to be somewhat impressed with the highly significant p-values (.05 is usually considered statistically significant; performance differences between the two groups in the study were significant at the .0005 level).
I think, regardless of the limitations of this study, it’s a step in the right direction. I am impressed that we are starting to see methodology like this with randomized trials in this area. It’s nice to see some relatively objective measures being put in place to test training methods, since there are so many different training styles floating around. I think the training community will benefit from more studies like this.
Assumption… While I simplified Monty’s approach, Join Up is the basis of Monty’s training technique.
Also which book? http://www.montyroberts.com/montys-store/books/
I have visited his farm.
I also knew some western performance horse trainers that took and trained some of his difficult to train horses. They were on a nearby ranch. Part of those horses training was work in a high walled round pen. Actually it was a high solid walled round building the horses couldn’t see out of.
And his special round pen. http://www.montyroberts.com/montys-store/equipment/round-pen/
The idea to say ANY trainers techniques is better then anything else is absurd. There is no cookie cutter approach to training a horse.
I also had his Dually Halter, which I found to be heavy and cumbersome. I like a nice rope halter.
http://www.montyroberts.com/montys-store/equipment/dually-halter-medium/
Tim, if you are referring to my post that gave my opinion of the study and of MR and other highly commercialized natural horsemanship trainers, I assure you that I was not referring to you and your methods. So, please do not interpret criticism where there is none. I am sure that you do a great job and have many happy clients and horses.
I feel the people calling for cortisol levels don’t understand the nature of cortisol! Cortisol has a diurnal release pattern so the amount present in the blood will depend upon the time of day the sample was taken. It is also released in response to the stress of putting a needle into a vein so the act of taking it makes the test unreliable.
When doing cortisols on people you leave a cannula in the vein and time the samples otherwise the results are virtually impossible to interpret. Trying to put those constraints onto what is a small study with someone (MR) who has limited time would have made the study unworkable.
And for what benefit? None as far as I can see over the easily recorded and non-invasive heart beat that they did do.
I agree with the people who are saying the results of this study are impressive and not completely to be expected. It will change the way I start horses in the future.
