And it was multilevel marketing–AMWAY–in every sense of the word. Parelli tried to recruit people to host clinics and they were to get all or some of the proceeds paid by the auditors, or something like that. It’s so long ago I can’t remember the details. At the time, I estimated that he had made about $25 000 over the weekend

And people who didn’t buy his overpriced glorified cowboy halters made thin so as to be severe, got no attention. I was one of them. On the other hand, there was a fellow there named Glenn Stewart who had absolutely no horse sense or ability and created lots of problems with the horse that he brought. But he had tons of money, and bought into the Parelli Amway system, and is now one of the higher level trainers in the system and highly sought after as a trainer in these parts, but what does that prove? I don’t know. To my eye, he has improved very little.

My mare that I brought to the clinic had come from a very abusive trainer and I had spent a great deal of time gaining her trust and confidence. I was able to get her to “play” the seven games, but not using his methods–”Lead, Lift, Swing, and then Hit them in the head (He said they were running into the rope b/c they did not move)” to get them to go out on the circle, which was of course not lunging. I could not make myself hit my mare in the head with the soft cotton shank I was using, let alone with the nasty little leather popper on the end of his ropes. She was getting upset and worried, and I was able to stop and think for a minute, and then I “Lead” with my hand and gave a tiny click with my tongue and she said “Oh, you want me to go in a circle!!” and did it. God knows what sort of torture she would have been put through by him or one of his acolytes, or by a horse owner who did not have the confidence and knowledge to trust their own instincts. Bear in mind that this was a mare that I could turn loose in the arena and free lunge in a big circle while there were other horses being ridden, and horses tied all around the edges inside the arena. She would walk, trot, canter, whoa, and come to me. This was all done without a roundpen, or drilling, or forcing. Later I had my old mare there as well, and she knew different voice commands: walk, jog, lope. I could free lunge them together in the same situation.

One of the other Seven Games, the “Squeeze Game” is a game designed to teach horses to run over/mow down their handlers, and should never, ever be taught. The way he does it is not designed to instill trust and respect in the horse, but rather it is acheived through intimidation. A horse that is afraid and/or disrespectful and/or resistant can very very quickly figure out how to make the handler give ground, and then the wreck is on.

I watched the first versions of Parelli’s videos–they are probably not around any more. The horse he used as a demo horse for the seven games was high-headed, resentful (ear pinning/tail swishing), angry, and unhappy. He was constantly placed in a “flight or fight” mode–is that left or right-brained–who cares and what does it matter. It was plain, that although he was well-versed in the methods, he hated every minute of what he was doing. It was in every way counter to what we are supposed to be trying to acheive–relaxed, confident, thinking, engaged, focussed, willing partners.

There may have been great things acheived by people who use this method, but I would hazard a guess that their horses went through some misery before they got there. There are so many other ways to acheive success that are fair and just to the horse, and that don’t demean him and turn him into an automaton or a psychological wreck!!

I think this is a bogus article. If you have so many answers on horse training, then why aren’t you out there “front and center”?

I have been to trainer after trainer. Competition after competition for years. I have been to some of the best trainers in the world and no one has been able to articulate “horse training” as well as Pat Parelli. He breaks it down so that ordinary people can understand the horse’s perspective. He compartmentalizes things so that a regular person can understand. I have never seen anything but excellent results with his way of training and I have really spirited horses which makes them hard to handle.

I have been to so many other trainers clinics and I usually leave those clinics with more questions. I learned that most trainers want to leave you with more questions so you will become a repeat customer. It is their business and they do that on purpose.

I am a pretty good judge of character and I do not get that vibe with the Parelli’s. They really want to see people succeed. That is the feeling I get from them and their training methods.

Also, Parelli never comes across as he is the God of natural horsemanship. He always credits those old time trainers he worked with long ago.

In all fairness, I will somehow get a hold of your book and read it. I will let you know if you explain things as well as Pat or if your just another one of those trainers who leaves me scratching my head!

I just found your site (I was looking at sites about rollkur/hyperflexion) and I noticed this blog. Your points are exactly why I never got into the Parelli techniques! I always felt something was “wrong”. Though I do think NH and Parelli (as other trainers) have made the world better for horses, allone allready because of the awareness. I have recently found another “trainer” that I find really interesting and his way I will use with all my horses (my future horses, only have one foal right now) simply because it works with all horses… The power in this method is that it is not a method, he just writes: you have to listen to the horse and go through ALL posibilities and treat every horse as an individual. He explains his “technique” through stories and how to solve the “problem”. I actually do not consider it a technique, I consider it being normal around horses… finally I can be normal around horses. No need for me to teach a certain method or technique like the 7 games, I can just be myself. That is also the reason why I never learned the Parelli method, it is a method and you have to learn how to be around your horse.. Well, this and other things about Parelli I don’t like: riding with spurs and a “harsh” bit is really natural right (do you smell my sarcasm ;) ). I might take some things from Parelli, as I do with Monty Roberts and other trainers, but I will never teach myself only one certain technique. Though I do believe his technique will be helpfull for some horses ->the real dominant ones, but how many really dominant horses are there? 10% of all horses? Thos who would be natural born leaders, but the rest of the herd is natural born submissive, why bother them telling what there place in the herd is? They allready know!
That is just what I wanted to write.
greetings!

Regarding moving into vs away from pressure. To be specific – physical pressure. A horse will move away from visual and audio pressure – for example when you are walking towards him to catch him from the pasture would be visual pressure. Yelling and shouting would be audio pressure. Physical pressure the horse will move into, to prove this all you need to do is take an unhandled horse, tie them to a solid object and just wait for them to realize they cannot just wander away freely. They will increase the physical pressure before they will release it. I could go on with more examples if needed.

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Erika – You’re an idiot. Horses move AWAY from pressure.

You are right, if you continued reading through the comments you would find my reply to Jeanne pointing out that I had referenced hair whorls in place of the right brain/left brain, introvert/extrovert that is true horsenality. There were people going around at many events in 2000-2001 time frame who were proposing the horse’s personality based on head shape and hair whorls. This blunder on my part is why I no longer field comments and make replies at 3:00am. :)

There are always pieces of every method that are worthwhile and work on certain horses. You found the 7 Games to your benefit and that is not unique – which is why Parelli has so many followers. If a single thing he did worked on zero of the horses and riders then he would not have a business. :)

Cheers!

For the record, I am not a huge fan of Parelli mostly because I think they have gone too far into it for the money and are ignoring a HUGE lot of people that could really benefit from them. With that said, I did use the 7 games to work with my Arab/Barb mare who, when I bought her was 6 years old, WAY beyond excitable and had only done Fantasia (the festivals in North Africa with the guns and shooting and whooping it up) :) After working with her using Parelli methods, my 8 year old daughter was able to ride her on the beach with no problems. I got what I wanted out of it but wasn’t so strongly tied to it to say it was the ONLY way. Just my two cents :)