I am curious who meets the definition of “woo” trainer.
Warwick Schiller?
Mustang Mandy ?
I still feel this is largely a ‘big fish/little fish’ issue. Any fish big enough can spout all the baloney they want. Put the same script in the mouth of a littler fish and folks will be suspicious.
Warwick Schiller loves his “woo.” Does he count as one of the illegitimate “woo” trainers ?
I loved Warwick until he started to woo. I no longer love his new stuff.
Warwick Schiller goes off in tangents that I may not follow (like the ice bath stuff), but I think a large part of his horse training program is sensible, and more importantly (in this specific discussion) FREELY available to the horse owning public. He has ways of monetizing his program of course, but there are dozens (hundreds?) of free videos on youtube explaining and demonstrating his methods. You can get a clear idea of what he offers, you can try it out yourself, and make your own judgment if you wish to pursue ($$) deeper into his program. If you don’t want to buy his KoolAid, you can still learn from him for free. I find his methods to make a lot of sense, and honestly stuff I’ve always used when working with horses, I just wasn’t particularly AWARE of what/why I was doing, and his concepts made me recognize and improve how I already did things.
Speaking from my own minimal experience…he’s in it to help horses, not purely to indoctrinate the masses with his Copyrighted Woo Flavor ™ and profit from it. I had a difficult horse with food aggression, and in a desperate whim I sent Warwick a message describing my issues. To my surprise, he responded-- asked specific follow up questions, gave advice and seemed genuinely interested in my horse’s problem. I am a nobody…not a regular follower, not a paying customer, just a random facebook stranger who had watched some of his Youtube videos some time ago… and yet he took time out of his day to help. His advice was reasonable, behavior-based, and I would not consider it “Woo worthy.” Does he offer some “woo” to his followers? Sure, I guess. But it is easy to dismiss what doesn’t apply to your sensibilities, and take the parts of his program that are useful to you, and he genuinely hopes that his work will help your horse in some way (whether or not you paid for it).
A complete ShamArtist woo trainer keeps their program behind a paywall, disparages any other method (“We Are The ONLY Way And The Light”) and operates under the All-Or-Nothing banner with KoolAid IV drips.
Ooh, or dissuades you from training with other trainers (local woo trainer is guilty of this).
There is a big fish/little fish component when it comes to what baloney is tolerated. That’s fair.
I’ll leave Warwick Schiller out of that though -he’s not anyone I have really followed.
I’ll focus more on top tier dressage and jumping people.
The big fishes have to have a demonstrable competition record to speak of. Then been coaching successfully for awhile, in a conventional way, and have several examples of objectively successful students, and horses that have been trained and made it to the upper levels.
If someone has all of these bonafides, and also wants to pontificate about their pet “woo” topic of one variety or another when coaching or giving clinics or training horses…
Well…
I’m not going to knock them down for it. Nor do I consider people like that to be the same thing as some of the total charlatans. These people have made it to the top in an objective way, and they have the luxury of being eccentric. They still have considerable skills and value to offer in terms of training… woo or no woo… so… people can get all into it if they want to. Or steer clear and choose coaches who keep their focus very conventional.
But, when you are talking about a no name person, with no record of their own, no super successful students, but they seem charismatic, handle horses with some skill, and can ride alright… and then they declare themselves an expert who knows more than all the other trainers who DO actually have a serious record of achievement… and it’s all because of this special woo theory on horse health, horse behavior, nutrition, rider mechanics, etc etc… and then they want to charge top tier dollars to unsuspecting people?
That’s a problem. Total fraud. A sham-woo horse person.
Yes. There are trainers like Warwick Schiller who appear to get consistent results in their actual training, and may also go on reflective tangents.
Then there are people like THW who do not appear to get positive results at all, hide behind a pay wall, bully clients and only have woo.
The tricky thing is that handling horses has a huge emotional and spiritual component. That’s what makes horses the central joy and balance point of most of our lives. You ignore or lose that component at your peril.
But it’s really hard to talk about without sounding about 12. And you can’t get there with your horses unless you do the hard physical work first. You can’t have a mystical bond with your horse if you are an incompetent rider and handler.
The bad fraud clinicians try to sell the feeling before the client has earned it.
This drove my husband back to college as well. He watched parents return unsuitable youth horses again and again Each time leaving with a “better” horse, less money, and even less suitability to the youth.
And seemingly more and more of them. I no longer am in equine practice because of all of the rank unmannerly horses.
The romance-factor cannot be dismissed. It is real. Call it woo if you like, but it is the thing that drew us to horses in the first place. And how common is it to be mismatched, especially with your first horse?!
and omg…you should see what goes on in the BLM mustang world. Anyone can adopt a mustang for $125 and get paid a thousand dollars one year later. Any clueless numbskull with zero experience, zero supporting horse-people in their life, (and i mean just for the basic management of the poor feral animal let ALONE the training factor!) In a lot of those cases, any help is help. If they land with Warwick Schiller the horse is lucky!
speaking of mismatch…and as for unathletic/unfit… most of these mustangs are small, and your basic American woman is not. That’s a hard one to observe and keep silent about. For me anyway…
Damn 
I see this kind of nonsense and wonder howtf vets and farriers deal with the nonsense.
I pride myself on my vets (yes, sadly multiple, because the princess has a thing for meeting ALL the vets lol) saying shit like, “No, don’t bother with the halter. She is a GOOD horse.” and then having to draw the line, “I think maybe I’ll put a halter on her for your student to draw blood. Just in case.” Student fumbles around drawing blood, mare does not move, vet looks at me with a slight eye roll as though to say I will never get back the 2 seconds I wasted putting that halter and lead on. 
(no, the vet is not nuts or especially cavalier about horse handling, he just knows the horse very (TOO, imo) well.)
This is now my new favourite description. Thank you!
Rescue too. Which is why so many of those horses end up neglected. We hear about the big hoarding and seizure cases, but fail to comprehend how many thousands of horses are in backyards & back fields throughout the country with little to no farrier care, veterinary care, and completely unhandled because of someone’s “love for horses”. Until they end up at some sale barn.
People fail to connect discipline with kindness in a positive way which is tragic when dealing with an animal who can do very real damage without intending to. We’re lucky if the humans involved learn, but most often it’s the animal that pays the price.
I was thinking about that while dragging the ring yesterday - that people think that loving animals means “being kind” and “not using them for our entertainment”.
But real love for an animal is the same as real love for a child. Ensuring that they are healthy, taken care of, and have real utility in the world which can only be accomplished with intentional discipline. It’s the weak way out to point fingers from “over there” and look for answers in charlatans. That’s the easy way, the cowards way.
There is no silver bullet for health, wellness, or utility.
It’s hard work. It doesn’t always feel good. There’s a tremendous amount of problem-solving when you get one that is a difficult nut to crack. It requires a LOT of self-reflection, frustration tolerance, emotional control and resiliency. And not everyone is willing to look inside themselves that deeply.
When I was in my early 20s, I really wanted to become an equine vet.
I changed my mind because of all the people. I knew that I would lose my mind when people would do neglectful or woo or stupid things. I run a boarding barn now, and even that is excruciatingly painful at times. I no longer accept horses that aren’t in training with me so that I can at least control the manners quotient.
Even so, the people component man - still super hard.
And so often people that “rescue” horses by way of taking them in from sketchy auctions or the like make the (usually incorrect) assumption that because a horse is underweight and wormy with long feet, he has been beaten and handled roughly and needs to be essentially killed with kindness to make him like people again.
Most neglected horses aren’t physically abused, just under-handled… and spoiling them by failing to set boundaries for their behavior doesn’t benefit them in any way or teach them that they’re loved.
Yes people do think unwanted behavior, fear, spooks, even bounciness, all natural horse behavior in unbroken horses, is due to “abuse.”
Or due to “bad posture”, if they follow the woo.
Ooh and that’s another annoyance of mine.
The horse won’t not buck you off/not stand at the mounting block/not spook or any other training issue because it likes you because you feed it and provide it treats.
The horse trusting your leadership is a thing, the horse liking to hang out with you is a thing, a horse disliking you or mistrusting you is a thing.
But training issues are not solved by random treats (excluding the appropriate use of clicker training and rewards).
WINNER!!!
I was really shocked that, when I adopted my burro from the BLM, they were only concerned with the height of my fence. Having jumped through the hoops of Pyrenees rehoming outfits, I was ready with all my references and documented experience, but the BLM didn’t care.
I now have a mustang as well, and my farrier was expecting her to be bad, because so many people with mustangs seem to fall for the sham-woo training methods.
like me! (i’m absolutely, totally woo)
mustangs are flooding the market the past few years. They’re pretty much everywhere now…I bet it won’t be long for the ‘crazy-horses’ myth dissolves.
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