If you’re serious about learning to work with your horse and train him/her to reach his/her potential, there are a lot of resources out there. Over the years Betty and I have read, watched or attended clinics of Clinton Anderson, Chris Cox, Mark Rashid, Julie Goodnight, Dennis Reis, Pat Parelli, John Lyons, Lynn Palm, Chris Irwin, Brenda Imus, Larry Whitesell, Mark Lane and I’m sure there are a few I’ve missed.
We’ve learned something from each trainer that’s been helpful but there are some things where they contradict each other – or they put different emphasis on how important some thing is or is not. And, for our simple minds that’s been confusing.
So, we’ve decided to narrow down who we’re going to watch and read. We’ve worked with our horses long enough to have a pretty good idea of what works for them and what doesn’t – and what fits our personalities.
For general horsemanship we are comfortable with Mark Rashid, Chris Cox and Julie Goodnight. They are similar in their approaches and their approaches fit our style and personalities.
Since our horses are smooth gaited horses (Icelandic Horse and Rocky Mountain Horse) we’ve discovered a gaited horse trainer out of Tennessee named Larry Whitesell. His basic horsemanship principles are similar to Rashid, Cox and Goodnight, and his gaited horse principles are simple, focused on what’s best for the horse and make a lot of sense to us. We’re going through his training DVDs now, both ground work and in the saddle, and we’re learning a lot that fits us and our horses. We’re even hoping to attend one of his week long clinics next year to get real hands on experience.
After years of trying on different sizes and colors of training, we’re comfortable with the size and color that fits us and our horses. We’ll still continue to learn every chance we get from all trainers, but we’re measuring it now against what we know about us and our horses.
That’s one of the things we love about our horses – there’s still so much to learn and they have taught us a lot about ourselves.
6 comments:
I've never had a gaited horse - that must be comfortable! - but I would expect that having someone who focuses on gaited horses is a good thing.
I'd like to go watch Harry Whitney and perhaps attend one of his clinics at some point, and I'm off to one of Mark Rashid's clinics with two horses next week - I've been riding with Mark for a number of years and have found him enormously helpful. I think trainer "jumping" can be a problem - if you've got one or a few people who work well for you stick with it - and if you've picked well, the person you're working with will be flexible and open to new ideas and not a "one system only" sort of trainer.
It's taken me some time to settle in as well - started with Parelli, moved around, but Rashid was actually the first training book I ever read. The only problem is I didn't have enough understanding to "get" it.
I'm with you about Julie Goodnight - I have found her to be very pragmatic and helpful. I doubt I'll ever ride with her, she's out of my budget for sure.
I hope to check out more of Chris Cox. I have heard so many good things about him.
Lots of people can train horses. Training people is much tougher, IMHO.
Sounds good to me. One day, I hope to attend a riding clinic. You're right, there's always so much more to learn!
Hit return too fast.
I'm curious what a gaited trainer does differently in your experience. I know a few gaited horses, but don't know much about their training.
I have never had the opportunity to see video series or go to a clinic, but I have read a lot of training books. My very first one was, "think harmony with horses" by Ray Hunt. We took a college course with our 2 horses at the time and it was our text book. I always remember his simple little adage of 'make the wrong things difficult and they right things easy'.
I look forward to hearing more about the differences with training gaited horses.
I've only ever audited dressage clinics, but I really want to do a Mark Rashid clinic but I'm noticing his schedule does not come close to my area =(
Finding a trainer, both on large scale like Rashid, and local to your area who uses same techniques would be best of both worlds I think.
I've never ridden a gaited horse but understand the reason why their training would be a bit different.
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