Your opinion on Parelli

Yes there are spoiled, dangerous horses originating from "ANY" type of training method. I don't care what name you attach to it, BAD TRAINING, IS BAD TRAINING.

I have the unique opportunity to travel around and see many different horses on a daily basis because I'm a barefoot trimmer. I work on horses ranging from week old foals to 38 year old toothless seniors. Thoroughbreds to Fjords. Gypsy Vanner to Quarter Horse. Arabian to POA. Paso Fino to Percheron. This is my full time job. I work with horses every single day.

So far, I can count about 7 horses that I would say were outright dangerous, not safe to trim or be around. One was labeled a "farrier killer," one has to be tied up short to keep her teeth off your face. One was so wild he kicked my tools all over the barn from one end to the other, knocked down both handlers trying to control him, and then bolted through a gate and took it off the hinges. I never even touched him! That all happened within the first 2 minutes of him walking into the barn aisle. One was a yearling who had already gone through 3 trainers and had to be worked to a lathered sweat before anybody could touch his feet and he still kicked out violently with both hinds. One was a 30 year old gelding that just had "moods" and "bad days" and if he was being pissy and crabby, he was all teeth and heels and nobody could touch him. There were times I had to just skip him because they said he was in a "bad mood." Owner said he's been that way his entire life! One hand to be drugged and twitched to be led from the pasture to the barn. One mare I never even met but a new client set me up to trim her other horses, then told me about this mare she had just given away, and I should be glad because it was a total fiasco to trim her. Another gelding I never met - the owner told me about him. He attacked a farrier with his teeth and threw him over a pipe rail gate. She had him put down.....And another I didn't include in the 7 was a young Appy gelding who wasn't dangerous, but he was difficult. He could just NEVER get it. He would fall down, stomp his feet, snatch his legs. I trimmed him for about 3 years and that horse never got better. Every time I was out to see him, it was circus to get him done. I do work with difficult or untrained horses a lot and after about 2 trims or so, they are usually doing really great. But not that guy! Boy he was tough.

You know what EVERY one of them had in common? Purebred Appaloosa. Every single one of them! It's almost become a joke - if somebody tells me about a major behavior or emotional problem with a horse, I almost always ask, "An Appy, per chance?"

But you know - I stll don't think there is one thing wrong with the Appy breed as a whole. My mother raised purebred Apps before I was born. I am guessing they get into trouble because people select for specific traits and colors, and so you might be more likely to breed bad temperaments just to get specific traits and colors.

Appaloosa horses are VERY intelligent! I have found them to be more like a mule almost, in that they tend to really think, and they need really good training in most cases. So I believe I tend to see and hear about so many "Appys gone wild" because of bad genetics, and bad training. But it's no fault of the breed!

But the point of this is to say, you can draw any parallell you want on any topic you want, but it doesn't mean it's accurate. I bet if polled all of you, you might say you have NEVER in your life encountered a poorly behaved Appaloosa horse. Every one you've ever been around has been awesome! So there is no way I can let my experience with Appy horses in my little corner of the world taint my view of Appy horses the world over! That would be absolutely silly. Even if I were to encounter 50 "bad" Appys, that is 50 out of how many hundreds of thousands in the world?! It would be absolutely silly and uneducated for me to declare that the breed is bad based on my own little sampling of horses.

I trim some really awesome fantastic Parelli trained horses, and I trim some spoiled brats that are owned by people who "do Parelli." It all depends on the human initiating the training - NOT te method used, or the breed, or age of the horse, or anything else. Anything that is "wrong" with a horse can be pinned back on the human doing the training.

Is it easy for people to just buy some DVDs and call themself a horse trainer - thereby ruining horses? Sure! Same way it's easy for people to buy a pretty Appy and then ruin it because they just don't have the sensitivity or knowledge to train such an intelligent, thinking type of breed. But I don't believe the answer is to destroy the guy who produces the DVD, or eradicate the offending breed of horse. People just need to get smarter about the way they train and handle horses

I should add of those 7 difficult horses I described, only 1 was owned by a woman I would say "does Parelli" and her other horses were completely fine.

I have gone to the horse and soul and to say so myself he is probably the best way to go in terms of a quick result.

That is the problem. They are quick fixes and that is not what you want.

I have reiners and by definition a reiners is to be willingly and effortlessly guided.

You know how long it takes to get to that point? About 2 years before you ever think about stepping foot into a show ring. Most trainers never get past the walk for the first 2 months and then anouther 2-3 before they get past a trot into a loop. Why? B/C you get what you get as to what you put into your fundamentals. WHen you are building a house if you spend extra time and effort in the foundation the rest of the house goes up a lot faster and a lot stronger and the finished look 100 times better. A horse is no different. Skimp on the fundamentals you will have a very very hard time on the rest.

That is the problem. It is easy to buy a DVD and cheap and heaven forbid that a horse owner actually pay a REAL PROVEN trainer to work with their horse and teach them. NO that some how makes you less of a horse owner if you use a trainer. I see it here all the time. If you use a trainer then you are somehow less of a horse person and you can not know what you are talking about b/c you need a trainer to train your horse. So in turn these people go out and buy all these DVDs and take a crash coarse of DIY horse training. You know who suffers? The horse.

Stop saying that PP and his DVDs are this great fix all, they are not. This type of things is the problem. If they did not exist then people would go find a good competent proven trainer and get the help they need. Using a trainer does not make you less of a horse person. It makes you a more intelligent one at the end of the day.

NRA, I totally agree. The problem with backyard trainers and all these DVD clinicians is the time frame. You can fit everything it takes to train a horse in a few DVDs. It's takes me between 3-5 YEARS to finish a horse. Not a few months.. And Padrona, I will never like PP or his methods. That won't change. It isn't just because of the horses, which most were level three horses, that I have run into, but his methods in general. And the guy can't ride, AT ALL. I would think, and hope,mas a big name clinician, he would be able to sit a horse right and have light hands. But he can't.. I will never agree with his methods. I've looking into his methods a lot, mainly so I could figure out how to take all of it out of a horse. I do not like or agree with him, and many other clinicians for that matter.. And that isn't something that will ever change..

I had to chuckle on the post about how mean all of the Apps were that one person ran into. I have yet to run into my first bad App. Some of the older ones are really dumb, but once they learn what you want, they are solid forever. I always thought they were too dumb to learn the cute tricks and bad habits that smart horses figure out with novice riders.

When I was sending a lot of 'dude horses' to the YMCA Camps and to dude ranches in Colorado, I used to buy every gentle sound one that came through the local sales or I found privately. I have one now, a big sorrel with a blanket by the name of Frosty. Gee, he is nice and rides good for anyone that can pick up the reins and he is only 7 and rides like he is 20.

I used to take in a lot of really spoiled and exceptionally mean horses. I retrained several stallions that were a LOT worse than the horse shown in the movie about Buck Branaman. Not one was a App. They were QHs, Paints, TBs and a couple of really mean Arabians. Some had put people in the hospital and a couple had nearly killed men -- including one local trainer that was attacked and had his Femur fractured in multiple places with bone sticking through his jeans. It permanently crippled him. Another one had turned tail and kicked a woman I knew very well and had helped her with him years before. He kicked one eye out and broke every bone in her face. She required many plastic surgeries. Her husband called me from the hospital and told me and asked me to go to their house and get him before he got home from the hospital. Not one had to be destroyed and not one was an App. Oh well. Sorry to get off topic.

Marketing GENIUS and a dang good trainer, himself. His method is complete and total BS.

I'm not a Parelli follower, but I don't know that it's fair to blame him for inexperienced people deciding to start their own horses. Does he promote that idea? I doubt it (but if he does, well, then, I guess he's not the brightest).

Not too many people around here follow Parelli, or are too into straight-up natural horsemanship, so I haven't seen any train wrecks that can be attributed to that. What I tend to sometimes see is macho riders who have too much horse for their skill level, piss the horse off with their incompetence, and get dumped. Or novices that while not macho, once again have too much horse for their skill level.

Every now and then I talk to someone who has acquired a young, unstarted horse to teach their loved one (who happens to be a beginner) how to break horses (thankfully this is rare around here).

These folks I'm describing haven't even heard of Parelli, so I assure you that getting rid of Parelli wouldn't help that much (at least in my area). People lacking common sense existed long before horse gurus started making DVDs.

Personally, I picked up a few little useful things of Parelli's in the '90s, when I was a spring chicken. Some of his techniques are counter-intuitive to me, though. I could probably say that about most gurus.

It seems to me that the knowleadgable local horse people I most admire pull bits and pieces from many different places - a little old school cowboy stuff, a little 'natural horsemanship,' etc... They use what works for them and what makes sense, and they're not afraid to try something new.

I will say...watching the video of him getting CHUCKED at Road to the Horse was pretty awesome.

God, where do those horses come from? I've never seen a horse as bad as the one in the Buck documentary, and I can't imagine one much worse. You're a brave woman. I would run the other way!