Downunder Horsemanship

Hello. I am new to the Downunder Horsemanship method and I was wanting to hear some input on what others thought about it and the sucess or lack of you all have had with it.

Thank you for all your posts!

He is a loudmouth, stupid, opinionated lout who wouldn't know a horse if it bit... uh wait... sorry thought it was another Rick Gore thread.. but it's a Clinton Anderson thread.. sorry they all run together.. Clinton Anderson is really well marketed and has underlings that shine his boots..lol Naw he's got some great techniques and some horribly expensive gear. You can learn much by watching and reading him, but mix in others to really round out your knowledge.. I like Lyons, Cox, Marten, Roberts, Parelli (in small doses) but I gotta say I learn more by just getting around real horse folks.. oh and horses.. learn lots watching horses..

CA has some great ground work techniques ! Are you a member of the no worries club ?

I learned and taught my horse so much by following the method, I still can't believe how good my girl is on the ground, she's the best behaved horse on the farm and we have upwards of 100 horses =]

Clinton anderson has some great products too. But even he says you don't need to use his stuff, its just the products he prefers. I personally don't use any kind of stick. Just a rope halter and a 12ft rope or lunge line. In cases where you would use the stick, I just swing the rope in its place.

I have all the John Lyons Communicating with Cues books, but he has seemed to drop of the earth. The past few years I have attended Equine Affair and none of his method or training gear has been there. I am not a Parelli person at all (gag) . But I am a fan of Lyons, I wish he had more stuff out. I am finding Anderson is easy to understand and to apply.

I really like Clinton. I have his Gaining Respect and Control on the Ground videos, I love them! He's really great at showing how to do what he's telling you, and then he shows common handler and horse mistakes. I also like that the videos show him training a hot horse and a lazy horse so that you can see how they react differently. He makes things really easy to understand.

Lookit can do things I never thought I would be able to get him to do, which is pretty awesome! :) So yeah, I recommend Clinton!

I find CA to be one of the most glitzy of the commercial trainers, and find that he approaches a horse with the prefixed attitude that it's going to be a "fight". What I mean is that he has a very adversarial view point toward horses, and watching him work with the colts at Road to the Horse, it looked to me that he set up that kind of a human/horse dynamic and worked from there. I know he is extremely popular, and his way of explaining things is pretty clear and helpful in many situtations, but he is no God to me. I've seen more horse savvy in others than in what limited amount of time I've watched Mr. Anderson.

I think the issue with all of theses on-line over the airwaves trainers is that they each have a "gimmick" or an approach. With Clinton Anderson, my horse actually had my number and knew that on the ground, he could very easily intimidate me. The Clinton Anderson method was exactly what I personally needed and it gave me back control of my horse. I gained a ton of confidence using this method.

I am actually NOT a fan of the Parelli methods AT ALL, however, I will admit that I have found some helpful hints mixed in with all of their hype.

I love John Lyons and many of the other trainers but as Tiny mentioned, it's really important that you take what you can from an on-line trainer and then move on. Do not drink the kool aide because with horses, there is no one-way of doing things....

I take little things from different trainers to use on each horse as an individual. My past mare and a mare two days ago was very threatened by the stick in certain situations. When that happens, I change it up to get the same answer. The mare two days ago was not scared of the stick at all....but when I tried to do the marching walk to get her to back up she took it as a challenge. But when I did the hula hoop game, she wasn't as threatened. So I used this to keep her backing up.

As far as watching his stuff, I don't like his personality at all. I like his book.

I'll say the same thing I do with all these 'fad' trainers. They all have some fantastic ideas, some crappy ones too, but don't buy into their 'tools' you really don't need those overpriced gimmicks. Read about all the trainers learn what they all have to say and decide what works best for you and your horse. I find no trainer works perfectly for every step of every horse's training. I find myself mixing and matching ideas and even making up my own alot :P

My horses never react the way CA's does in his videos. They simply do not work for me and my horses.
I did pick up a bit from the Cantering with confidence dvd, namely the training aids. So much so that Cantering training aids has become part of our vocabulary. As in "did you bring the Cantering training aids ?"
"Yep, got smirnoffs and watermelon shooters in the saddle bags,"