Horsemanship hasn't evolved very far, and Danny Thomas provided a glowing demonstration of that fact with these self-posted videos on Facebook.
Bragging that he was able to break a Mustang in 30 minutes…
Why are we still basing our training decisions on the brevity of time?
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I've been riding since I was 9, and in love with horses from the day I was born. Living in Washington with my horse and 5 dogs.
Following the Gerry Cox article and some of the conversation that came up with it. I have to say, I have had clinicianitis for a long time. I’m allergic to clinicians and their bullshit. I’m…
Dressage is supposed to be a dance, why not combine it with a real ballerina? The girl riding demonstrates the ability to perform high-school dressage moves in a bitless bridle, which is a shame that competitions don’t yet allow.
Really, the most important thing you’re missing right now is not being with your horse 1-on-1. Stop reading this article, put on some barn-appropriate-attire and say, “screw it” to whatever you had planned to do on the computer (those 6 hours of repetitiously refreshing your Facebook newsfeed for example..). The emails you were going to grudgingly respond to can wait until the morning. That series you were going to watch on Netflix can’t compete with the horse hair you’ll be covered in for the rest of the night.
This is a great example of how playful horses are naturally… and definitely the best alternative to watching the gory display of a traditional bull fight.
Handling the lunge rope and the reins without gloves felt, well, awful. It simply did not run freely through my hands at will as they had when I wore gloves. My fingers seemed to almost stick incomprehensibly to the reins or the lunge line at the most inappropriate times, truly compromising the signals I was attempting to make. They fumbled and fought against one another in an effort to the correct the sticky fingers problem to no avail.
Heads up, this post contains foul language. Don’t say I didn’t warn you. More often than you’d expect, I receive comments that are .. displeased with my writing. But the majority of them always come…
Another winner, Erica. Thanks for posting the tough ones. Too many horse people would prefer to say nothing. I have had several posts about “30 day wonders” or even “90 day wonders”. There is no possible way for a horse to be properly gymnacized in that short amount of time. I fully disagree with the competition of “Road to the Horse” for this reason – it leads people to believe that they can produce a fully trained horse in a couple of days. They may know a few cues, but have had almost NO time to develop the soft poll, strong back and strong haunches needed to balance and carry a rider.
Some years ago there was a show on cable called “Cowboy U”. Usually it was city slickers competing doing cowboy stuff, but one season it was actual cowboys. There was a horse trainer from Oklahoma–when they competed in “colt breaking”, he was gentle and persuasive. Once he was on the horse’s back, he rode a slow walk once around the round pen, dismounted, and said “That’s enough for a first ride.” The guy that won, on the other hand, had the horse cantering wildly around the pen. The judges said that he got better action out of the horse. I’d much rather have a horse started by the first guy. “It’s easy to break a horse. It’s a lot harder to fix one.”
I don’t think he by any means broke a horse in a half hour but i won’t argue with the fact that he was calm and consistent and it worked for what he was doing that day
One seriously stressed and tormented horse. But, she will eventually fall into learned helplessness, with continued treatment like that, and people will think he has trained her well. Sad to see, but all too common.