What is your opinion on Parelli?

I am personally working on finding my own opinion.

I've played the games with my cousin's horse. She swears by Parelli, and said I had to learn the games before I could ride her horses. Her horses seem to enjoy the Parelli method, and she is a Parelli master, and even went and stayed with the Parelli's for a couple of weeks for their schooling thing.

A couple of weeks later I talked to my Grandfather, an ex-cowboy and current farrier and fox-hunter, and he said that the horses he's met who have been trailed with the Parelli method give him more trouble than any other horses he's worked with.

What is your opinion on Linda and Pat, and their training methods?

Horrible... Not to offend anyone that does like them.. Just MY opinion.

Did you ever see the videos of Linda?? There are quite a few that shows crappy and bad methods... So I'm not just basing my opinion on one 3 minute video...

And I do remember one of Pat that was getting very frusterated with a horse and doing some bad horsemanship.

And I don't like the "game" thing.. You have to complete each of the games before you can do any work with them.

So, no. I Do not like Parelli.

I think Parelli does not work with every horse, which is (putting aside trainer error) what makes or breaks a horse after Parelli training. Parelli caters so much to the "wild, uncontrollable" horses, that they forget about horses like my Arthur, who are completely bombproof and won't run around in a circle around Pat Parelli for the life of him. My Thoroughbreds, on the other hand, love Parelli because it's all based on sensitivity. Thoroughbreds are naturally sensitive animals, so Molly and Excel excel at Parelli's concept of "how much pressure can I put on this horse's chest so he moves?". They LOVE moving off of pressure. Arthur....not so much. He's not going to jump and move off to the rail with a wrist signal, ever. He's just not that kind of horse. He's been too desenstized to putting up with things that a jab on the neck isn't going to make him move. He's bombproof, solid, and will put up with anything.

I don't really mind his methods/ideas although his wife explains things better lol.
The basic principals make sense, though I understand how someone would have troubles working with a horse who's been trained the "Parelli" way (most ppl who talk of Parelli training are refering to Natural Horsemanship as a whole, not just the man himself).

In my opinion, if you're going to train a horse this way you should plan on keeping it as most people won't know how to work with a horse who's been taught the "natural" way and will have troubles.
I've watched some videos & read one of the books, but I don't do everything step-by-step. I take some of the ideas/principals & apply them where I see fit when working with a horse. And EVERY horse is different.
His way of working the brain not the body makes total sense though I don't think it's at all necessary to learn all the games on the ground before getting in the saddle.

My friend is working with her Arab in the natural way. Her dad's more of the old-style cowboy/trainer & so she always did the normal stuff (catch the horse, throw a saddle on, maybe longe them in circles until they've calmed down a bit, ride & deal with the issues as they come up).
This particular horse, however didn't respond very well to this way of handling. He was 9 when she broke him, extremely sensitive, cinchy & he would spin in circles when she tried to mount. Though he never offered to buck, he was always tense & coiled like a spring.
She started working with him on the ground using some of the Parelli methods & he's a completely different horse now.

Again, we use him or any other Natural Horseperson's training style as a guide, not a rule. You don't have to do everything by the book.

Haven't we been here before?
There's been so much said on Parelli, I think many of the members will feel kind of jaded about reopenning the subject.

I liked what Ruffian said. She has more stamina than I do.

The one complaint that I have with Parelli is that often horses become so desensitized that it becomes hard to work with them. We need a horse to be sensitive and move away from pressure, not be cuddly and always face us.

Also, (another complaint), I dont' like the way the trainer goes through these "games" without really understanding WHY and what they are trying to achieve except to pass that level so they can go up a level. They lose sight of the reason behind any training strategy or movement. Thus, they don't know which are needed when, and just go blinding through the 7 games, whether needed or not.

However, I have said before, that I give the Parellis a big hand for their having brought Natural Horsemanship out to the general public in such a palatable form, and basically starting a revolution in horse trianing.

Tinyliny-- I'm sorry I brought it up, I knew to this site, so I didn't know.

Lilruffian-- I entirely agree. Each horse is different.

Equiniphile-- YES!!! He does focus way to much on problem horses. Have you read what he says about stallions? He's sooo against them. If there were no stallions there would be no horses. Should ammys be handling stallions? No. But that doesn't mean all stallions are bad.

And Ray, yes, I don't think that you should have to go through a series of games to work with your horse. I think that it's important for horse and rider to bond, but I don't think that a series of games, that some horses don't even respond to, are worth the time.

I remember my cousins Warmblood and I were playing the games, as she was teaching them to me, but he got bored and eventually stopped responding. But she wouldnt let me on him until I did each game.

I greatly DISlike parelli, and that's me being nice so I don't get banned. A word of advice for all new member is to use the surch option to look for other threads before you post. A lot of these kinds of threads end really bad.

I do Parelli with my horse to calm her down, I don't usually do Parelli (im an English style rider that does dressage) but it will help you form a relationship with your horse and it helps me in my dressage now because I can go sideways disengage the hinquarters and all now, I would recomend it to everyone!

The thing is , Bella Boo, none of what you describe that you do to calm your horse and create a better relationship IS Parelli. All of those motions/techniques preexisted him by a long way and are used by many other practicioners, and they didn't copy Parelli. They all use many of the same techniques. They are very old training steps. It's just that the Parelli's get credited with this because they renamed it something catchy like "savvy" and "game", and systemetized it in a reasonable order. That systemetizing was the smartest thing they ever did and has made them rich.
BUT it has also made many people take the first steps to strike out into new territory of relationship with their horses, and for that , the Parellis deserve great credit.

Im not a fan at all. I think the ideas would be great to use on wild horses, being introduced to humans, but not domestic horses.
They seem to end up with more issues than normally trained horses. One lady at the farm I board at has been doing the games for 5 years, she told me....never seen her ride ....hmm
Taking training slowly and gently is great, but if there is no training going on then its a waste of time.