Just, WOW! Until I saw that video, I didn’t fully understand what was being said on this thread… and still think that video must be a joke… That poor, dear horse… I can’t unsee that video… I have never seen anyone do that on a horses back. so disturbing…
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He had online other videos of his riding, even recent ones. I think they are all taken down now. He had videos of his “clinics” which consisted of comments such as “Nice…good…OK, trot…goooooood… (rinse, repeat)”
His other big thing is that he offered to give a free clinic to anyone in the US to show his worth. Oh, but airfare, hotel, food, transportation must be paid for. Would you pay expenses for a guy who rides like that on his “Grand Prix” horse to come give a clinic at your barn? Would you pay to take a clinic from a guy who rides/trains like that? Who scored in the 40s on his own horse at fourth level in different tests while Nick was saying he was “robbed” of a good score because the judges were out to get him? He posted for a while his warmup to one of those tests to prove his horse was going so nicely, except the warm-up looked like a nice warm-up for a training level test, not fourth level. NONE of the required movements, or movements above training level, were worked on in the FOURTH LEVEL warm-up! I a least lightly schooled the 4-tempis, half-passes, working pirouettes, all of the highlights of the test before I went into the ring fourth to get on the same page as my horse and sharpen us both for the test. Not Nick, he apparently didn’t need to school anything except going forward in the gaits. This encapsulates a large part of the story with NP.
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Did it remind you of a monkey humping a football? 
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Great Cliff Notes version @J-Lu!
@Danvers, the part about the book(s) going around is true. There might still be a copy up for grabs floating about out there somewhere, if you want to read it. Maybe someone will post that they got stuck with it at the end and will send it along.
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What a scathing rebuke of his prowess as an author.
And yet, at the same time, thoroughly honest. 
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Thank you, but I will pass… I have enough bad habits with my bad riding, don’t need to read or watch others …
There’s little to no content about how to ride in the book.
It’s mainly a recitation of his persecution by the cruel world and this bb.
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Please, someone take this bad juju book from me. I can’t seem to get rid of it fast enough. I’ve already tried to unload it several times.
*Reads like a poorly written blog. He never takes personal responsibility for ANYTHING in his life. Once he started to quote scripture, I was out!!!
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OK, this isn’t that. I know. But, every time someone gets going with the “humpin” thing, I think of Jim Carrey doing his Clinton thing…enjoy…
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And another ringing endorsement! 
Ah, come on @Danvers, aren’t you at least a little bit curious?
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I don’t have the words… that was disturbing… that poor dear horse…
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after watching that video… NO!
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But @Danvers, there are no videos in the book.
It is actually an amusing read.
@cheektwocheek, do you have the copy with the comments written all over it? If it is that copy, that adds extra fun to the reading experience.
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And here we come to the whole crux of the matter, it DID look like a nice warm up for a training level test. If he had accepted that fact, and worked with it, actually took sone lessons, rode all year he MAY have become a competent rider, scoring decently while working up the levels.
As for the hands of crotch mauling reins of silk….
I had the other issue, and of concrete, desperately trying to get stillness in the air over the withers, until my trainer told me to go watch a video of Charlotte, and block out everything else, and just watch her hands… OMG, it was a revelation, and I got slated here when I couldn’t find the words to describe it. She doesn’t have what I was trying to get “still hands don’t move” hence concrete hands. No she has hands that are rarely still, but never move, because she is in constant conversation with her horse, all with the tiniest of moves.
I stopped aiming for still hands and started developing quiet but mobile hands, and for me it worked.
Bring on the knives, but it made sense to me, it was a beautiful moment to see what good hands look like, and to have an image in mind of how to communicate!
Oh, and riding my trainers 4th level horse really brought it home to me…these horses have so many buttons installed it’s really easy to be pushing the wrong one, it’s a humbling but totally thrilling experience 
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Maybe @Danvers should read the Amazon reviews… if they’re still available. Those, too, add to the reading experience.
The book is just the bitter icing on the proverbial cake of regret. Rather than working hard, being humble and accepting honest criticism of his horsemanship, he resorted to writing a poorly composed book that blames his lack of a riding career on everyone else, including dressage judges, barn managers, world class riders and COTH posters.
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No, but I do have the Original with “forward” on the cover. Wonder if it’s like a beanie baby and worth 2 cents more with spelling errors?
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I’m also calling BS on the part where other children made fun of him because he was Catholic. My husband grew up as a Catholic in that area, mostly Italian & Irish families. Unless you sacrificed chickens or something, nobody cares if you are Catholic.
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I thought we had destroyed all of Nick’s horcruxes! 
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They are still there to read.
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Seriously? Like he grew up in Belfast or something?
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