Natural Horse Training

What is Natural Training and How Can this Help You

Contents

Introduction

For me, natural training is about communicating with a horse and finding ways to help them understand what you want, but without training them through the use of fear or force, or not training them, both of which create immense problems.

It is not a matter of them being bad or wrong and us being right – it is a matter of learning how to communicate with them effectively, and so enable the partnership between horse and rider to evolve.

They are the most beautiful of animals, but they can be enormously challenging; however when you hit blocks, if you are able to learn and come through them you will have learnt, in many cases, a great deal.

Training Frustrations

Natural horse training of horses eluded me for a long time.

When learning to ride and then hunt etc. I often became frustrated and dissatisfied with the way our horses were going. So, in order to try and resolve the problems I would either ask trainers or other horse owners, who were more experienced than I was, for advice.

They seemed to either disregard the problems I was having or advise me it was just the way the horse was and so to accept it, or if they thought it needed addressing, would advise me to get firmer and more disciplined, or just “change the horse”.

None of these solutions really worked although I tried them all. I.e. they might work for a bit but the problems never really went away. The habits were just managed, camouflaged or the horse performed but not really performed, i.e. if he could, he would still resort back to the annoying habit, if he had the chance to do so.

I sort of had a gut feel as to what I did not like with many of the training methods I was given, but I did not have alternative answers either that worked, very frustrating.

There seemed to be awful lot of work with very little sense of real fulfillment. No way was I feeling I was achieving what I wanted, I think I was just managing.

My Goal Throughout This Time Had Been….

My original goal was very simple, (regardless of any riding achievements), it was to own, ride and hunt a safe, relaxed, well behaved horse. By this I mean, to be able to ride where ever I wanted to go, with or without other horses, to go at whatever speed I want to go and to jump what I wanted to jump. For them to stand still while I mounted and dismounted, load easily and be pleasant to handle (and not get bitten, trodden, kicked or knocked over, throughout this whole process……..!)

There were many times when I wondered whether I was expecting or asking too much. Regardless of the trainers I worked with, I could not seem to get the answers I craved and hence, felt this was maybe, impossible to achieve.

A Further Challenge

I then bought a chestnut mare, she was an ex-race horse and very pretty. When she arrived here I got on her and she baulked and if asked to walk on would rear, horrible.

I was fed up of continually changing horses because of their awful behaviour and so decided to keep her and learn how to become a better horseman.

Needless to say she was tremendously challenging (and her feet were also, absolutely appalling.) After reading, studying and trying many different ideas I almost threw the towel in and gave her away. However, I came across a trainer who helped me do some groundwork training and she recommended a couple of books to read.

We did progress but there was still a long way to go.

Parelli

My husband then handed me a Parelli dvd. I had heard about Parelli but for some reason the idea of playing games using ropes and balls on the ground with a horse, maybe fun, but how was that going to help me train a horse that was to be ridden……?? It did not seem remotely relevant………how wrong I was.

Fortunately, I decided to investigate Parelli’s training methods; almost dragging my heels I went with our 3 daughters to the NEC in Birmingham and watched him work.

I have not looked back.

They answered my questions……and showed me the alternatives.

Their material is outstanding – it is all there for anyone regardless of age or ability.

From all that we have learnt we have started to incorporate on a daily basis many of their training ideas.

Here is one video clip of my daughters playing with Smartie, who has been played/trained using many of Parelli’s natural horse methods.

Skipping Video Clip

This clip below was taken on a very cold day, but as you can see they were having a lot of fun.

The clip above is of Sasha, now in the summer playihg with Smartie. The play aspect took me time to understand and appreciate. Very simply if a horse is able to play it shows how relax they are, they feel safe enough to actually play.

What I love about this clip, is there are no ropes, no bits, nothing, just a child playing with her pony…..

I am just so fortunate we found out about this type of horsemanship……., thank you Pat & Linda Parelli

Natural Horse Training on this Website

What I have decided to do is to write blog posts about our natural horse training work here and how we are incorporating Parelli training methods ideas and suggestions.

I think this is going to be the easiest way to keep Successful Natural Horsecare updated on natural horse training and so help share with you, what we are doing and what is working with our horses here.