Monty Roberts

Just wondering what your thoughts on him are really :) any opinion welcome but obviously don't bash other people's opinions ^^

Um I personally quite like him I've seen one of his demonstrations with kelly marks in england :) and I loved the way they used real peoples horses that really had problems rather than their own which may have been staged etc I like his methods and the online university covers so many subjects even dressage! And how to do his method "join-up" without a round pen etc I haven't tried it yet but I know my 9 year old new forest was broken in using his methods from one of his trained representitives and I know my boy is very sweet although at the moment he is testing me as I only got him in august :) so yeah just tell me your thoughts :) I'm just interested to know other peoples opinions on him and his work

Nobody could accomplish what he has without being an incredible horseman. He is one of the few "clinicians" that has been a champion at any kind of competition and he has been at the top of a few. I like what he has to say and the way he handles his horses.

He is my favorite of the big name clinicians.
I was kind of hesitant of him at first because he seemed to have a wacky "be one with the horse" vibe from people who had talked to him. Then I read his books and became a big fan. He is very common sense and easy to understand.
I have had good success with the join up methods. I had been using them before reading the books without knowing it but reading the books gave me a much clearer picture of how to utilize my roundpen time.

Thanks for replying I see you are of a similar opinion to me about him :)

I really want to try join-up but I'm kind of hesistant as I don't want to mess it up I'm going to get his online university again at christmas so I may try it then just wondering how sort of easy is it? I'm just terrified of getting wrong! Haha

It depends on the horse. Some horses will join up quickly, others take a more experienced hand. I've found it directly relates to where they stand in their horse heard and how well you assert yourself as a leader.

Have you read his books? I forget which one it is but he goes through step by step on how to do the join up method. I believe he also has some video examples on youtube but I would have to find them in amoung the wanna be horse trainers that post on there.

Yeah he has videos on his online university :) step-by-step I think Rascal should get it pretty quick as that's how he was broken in so has done it before :)

I love Monty Roberts! He used to have free vidoes on his website but I don't think he has them anymore. I would sooo want to do his online university!

It's really good well worth the money, which I don't actually think is that much when you consider what you get out of it. It covers soo many topics and it's just a great resource! You definitely should save up for it!

I think I will! I have wanted to do since it came out and it's not even very expensive!

Monty roberts takes all of his ideas from the Dorrance brothers (tom and bill) who are thought of as the first "modern natural horsemen" and influenced the likes of Ray Hunt, recently deceased yet still one of the best horsemen of our time. While bill mainly worked on their farm, tom (to a lesser degree) and ray travelled worldwide giving natural horsemanship clinics way before monty roberts appeared on the scene. The thing I don't like about monty and the likes of pat parelli is that they are in it for the money and the publicity rather than for the good of the horse..
While what he does is very good, I would say if possible try and go back to the roots and read work by ray hunt (just look on google), I think there are clinics going on by his tutors aswell.. the most important thing I think is to question everything you see, have an open mind and don't stop learning, monty says lots of useful stuff but I think the origional is often the best :)