rants and raves, round pens, videos and horse trainers
Posted by JFox Central NE at 2014-04-08 01:24:29
I started to post this as a reply to a post then decided better. This way Joe can just stop me before it gets started.
ROUND PENS
The biggest farce ever. Yes they have their place, but it is very limited. But all the "horse whispers" forgot to tell everyone why they use a round pen. It is so to biggest number of people can crowed around to see. Oh yea and it makes videoing a lot easier, can you imagine all the editing that they would have to do cause the needed 6 cameras to get the good shots? WOW round pens just became a must! 30 min in a round pen is harder on a horse then 2 hours of work. "Harder" not better. I work with mules, give me a 5 acer lot and I can make the hardest to catch mule give in and let me halter him. That is cause I work on his soft spot, same on a horse. It is his nerves, its not fast but very effective and it is not hard work on my part. No ropes, whips or sticks with bags on them. Just me with a halter in my pocket and hands behind my back. Don’t want to look like the boogie man.
VIDEOS
Wow the list is way to long to even list half of them (hope that this don’t hurt video sales Joe). We all have seen some of them. The first thing that everyone of them should have at the beginning of his/her video is 5 min. of them laughing so hard that they cant stand up, with the words "GOT ANOTHER SUCKER TO BUY A VIDEO". Oh don’t get me wrong I think that every video has at least one good point made. But the problem is the back yard farmer that decided that he/she wants a live yard ornament also buys a video collection. That makes them "taught by the pro's". There goes another good horse-gone-bad. that leads me to my next rant.
HORSE TRAINERS
"The local horse trainer" every time I hear that I get this image of a bare back or saddle bronc want-to-be cowboy. He borrowed the money from his soon to be ex father-in-law to buy a set of videos and had his buddy’s come over and build a round pen one Saturday with a case of beer. Sorry but that is the picture I get. But it is unfair to judge them all that way. I did meet one at a rodeo that was totally different. I sat on the fender of a horse trailer and watched 2 guys talking about a horse that had been to 4 different trainers. when this older guy said "Well lets just take a look at him". They unloaded this horse that made me want to pull out my check book and buy him on the spot. In less then 2 min I was wanting to burn my check book so I wasn’t tempted ever again. This horse was a total mess, I watched for 45 min as this older guy worked with this horse. It was magic, he would ask the owner a question and then he would work with the horse. Halter, saddle, and many other problems. Then the last question "How dose he load"? The owner said "He don’t". The older guy laughed and said "he will". And he did. I wish that I had a camera, cause I am still not sure what he did. This all took place in the parking lot at the rodeo. When the horse was loaded again they both left. I asked several people that was watching who they were but know body knew them. Sitting here and thinking about it I have come to the conclusion. If everyone knows them they just have great advertisers. The best horse trainers are the people that are out there starting horses not for the $$$ from video sales. But cause it is what they love to do. I bought a team of pony’s for my girls, They were run-a-ways, as I found out later from some friends. The pony’s had been in every pony chariot race in several states. Then spent 2 years of trying to slow them down. 2 winters of hauling feed to 300 hd of cows. Before they would walk, Now that they will walk I wont sell them for less then---yea not for sale! Well not cheap anyway. Diamonds aren’t cheap.
So go buy your round pens and videos, call the horse trainer I need some more cheap horses to turn into diamonds.
P.S. Thank you for your time Oh yea I have 3 teams for sale, but not cheap!!!
Jim AKA FatFarmerJim
Response by Vince Mautino at 2014-04-08 09:38:13
That is a pretty wide brush stroke there Jim.
One video comes to mind that is very well worth the money is the one by Jack Stroud.
AS for round pens, the only time I use them is the first 2-3 rides, then it's out in the open for saddle time and then I train as I ride.
Lot of god trainers out there, but a lot of sheisters too.
One well known one who certainly knows mules, ends sup hacking his tack at his seminars.
Merdeith Hodges in Loveland CO has produced some fine videos and probably can out class anyone in the country with her mule knowledge and her promotion of good mule breeding in the US.
Let us not throw out the baby with the wash water.
Response by Marshall at 2014-04-08 10:11:12
I pretty much agree about the trainors. I have a haflinger mare that three "professional trainors" said was beyond saving. They all said she should be put down. My oldest daughter has been riding her the last two years. She will be 12 this summer. I wouldn't dare think about getting rid of that horse. All it took was a little time and patience. We have taken her to a few horse functions and people are always impressed with how well she behaves and works for a young lady.
Response by Mptclinics in IL at 2014-04-08 10:22:21
I agree with Vince. For those of us who either don't have the ability to travel, endless resources to pay for clinics or train with the pros, or just don't have access to the "real things," then these round-pens, videos, books, etc. are absolutely better than nothing. Sure, I learned more in the 3 driving clinics I took than in the 3 years of in-depth video and book learning I did to prepare, but I have absolutely no regrets. I learned from all of it.
I happen to love a round pen, but it absolutely has to be used correctly. I also love ground work for my horses, which seems to be an oversight by most. The problem, like many things, is when you get folks who think running a horse around a pen for 2 hours is the way to train them. That is ABSOLUTELY not the case. The pen is designed in a way to provide the horse a smaller "outside world" for distraction, no corners to get hung up in, encourage movement (especially with a lazy horse), and allows many things to be taught to a horse without being right beside them all the time. Can you do it in 5 acres, sure, and I have. But I do it a whole lot faster in a round pen, and I have a lot fewer low blood sugars too! (I am T1 diabetic). If I can get the horse to the place I want without it ever breaking a sweat, then I've done well! Remember, with some animals, you don't just have them on the end of a line…they have you on the end too!
I can't help but think of a situation I deal with now. We do rotational grazing, so our farm paddocks are primarily electric wire. Depending on the animal we are fencing (pigs, chickens, goats, horses, cattle, dogs), we change it up a bit to increase visibility, increase shock power, increase or decrease the number of lines, etc. We tailor it the animals when needed, and we train our animals to it each year. When set up for the year, it takes a couple minutes a day, so minimal input. We have done the same with sheep. As a result, we have paddocks full of green grass during the growing season, and the animals stay in. If they happen to get through the electric, we have a very solid welded wire perimeter fence. This isn't generally an issue though. On the other hand, my brother in law lives next door. He saw our electric set up, and thought "GREAT! I can do that!" He got some old and dirty polytape horse fence from a guy down the street, enclosed his perimeter with it to create about a 1-acre paddock, and threw his 5 sheep in there. No ground wires, sags in some areas, etc. The first day, he lost 3 of his sheep when they ran straight through it. He never trained them to respect it. Those 3 spent the summer roaming wild in the forests. Over the months, 2 were killed, and one finally found its way home. Now, those sheep still break out ALL THE TIME! He gets so frustrated that it won't work for him. In addition, he has a totally bare paddock because he doesn't rotate. He has spent hundreds in seed, and countless hours trying to rehab the paddock as he is so convinced it will grow even with those sheep running around on it. In both cases, he's in for a losing battle. Of course, he wants no input from us. Anyone watching what he goes through would naturally think very poorly of electric.
All that to say, like Vince said, don't throw out the baby with the bath water. Like all things, when used properly, (electric fences), round pens, videos, and GOOD trainers are an incredible tool, but when used improperly, they reflect bad on the whole system.
Response by Jenny at 2014-04-08 11:07:46
Having never used a round pen, or bought a training video, or attended a workshop, I haven't got much to say about them, except that there is certainly a need for the spread of good training info. If people would just slow down the training process and not skip steps, so many horses with potential, wouldn't be ruined and sent to the sales. Watching horses in movies and tv has created this illusion that even wild horses know instinctively what people are trying to tell them. And, not every horse has the same brain. Some horses are smarter than others and it's often the smart ones that become a problem. The horse has the human figured out in the first 5 minutes while the human is still learning which end of the horse is which.
Response by Paulk at 2014-04-08 11:38:26
I spent months reading, watching videos, even went to a big name mule trainer seminar to figure out why I was having so much trouble with my mules. In the end the advice I got here from people that are trying to accomplish something with their animals vs make a dollar telling me how to accomplish it was much better than any trainer. The most valuable advice and knowledge I received was from a teamster friend of mine. After I finally asked for help he taught me more in an hour that all the research had. He also taught me that I needed more training along with the mules. I still ask him for advice on occasion and I am grateful. I think some of the trainers and performers have some good ideas and techniques but you have to be able to form your own training methods that work for you and your animal. I can't speak one way or another on a round pen as I have never been able to use one. I would like to have one or even a square pen maid from round pen panels for the first few rides on an unfamiliar animal but not for training. For now my corral area behind my barn will have to do.
Response by Anna Knapp-Peck at 2014-04-08 17:45:50
In many ways I agree with Jim. After a few years working on commercials and different events I am cynical of anyone telling me how to train something while selling a product. That said I have met Drew Conroy in person he helped my kids with their oxen, and I liked him. he hasn't forgotten where he came from and he'll tell you how much he doesn't know. I also met Doc Hammil and although I didn't sit in on any of his talks, he did take the time to visit with my daughter Lain and meet her Purple ox. So.....beware of an expert, an ex is a has been, and a spurt is a fast drip!
Response by Charlie T at 2014-04-08 18:08:20
Great topic! Not sure I agree that much with the OP, but if he or she is turning out good horses I think that is just fine. Results are what matter, and the intangibles that a good trainer brings to the horse are more important than just about any device or system there is.
My biggest concern today, from what I see, is the over reliance on dominance. A good example is the new plow reins I ordered for this season. They arrived in the mail last week, and when I went out to use them, they didn't fit into my hame rings, by a mile! The damn things are 1 1/8" wide, weigh about 5 lbs each, and are built for pulling hard on a mouth and never letting go. My old reins are a little less than 3/4".
OK, my little mustang only takes a 20" collar, maybe these reins aren't as big and heavy as I think. So I grab my Great Grandfather's 100 year old hames from the rafters, 26", full size draft horse gear. My giant new reins don't fit into these hames, either. Furthermore, I note that Great Grandpa had only plain snaffle bits, no levers, no curbs, to depend on for his daily livelihood.
So I am just really concerned when I see these thick heavy reins attached to curb bits, and the horse out in front has his head high in the air and his mouth wide open, and the teamster is straining to hold them back. This is when I wonder whether that horse had a good training foundation before someone hitched him up and drove him out to work. I just wonder if they shouldn't have taken it a little slower in the beginning, gotten the simple stuff solid, and then gone to work. That's all.
Response by Sharon at 2014-04-08 19:44:11
Standard draft line width for leather team lines is 1 1/8". Swing and lead lines are made narrower. Many of the lines I see on old harness are narrower than 1 1/8"; some were made narrower to start with, but most are narrow from wear. A 1 1/8" line should fit through the line ring on any farm hame. I agree some lines are made too heavy, and 1 1/8" is too wide for me to comfortably hold. But for some reason people seem to equate thick leather with quality. It's the tannage that determines the quality of the leather, not the thickness.
Response by Barb Lee at 2014-04-08 20:31:00
" Oh don’t get me wrong I think that every video has at least one good point made."
I always felt that if there was once sentence in a $25 book or video that helped me make a breakthrough, it's money well spent, even if the rest of the book is hogwash. We may come into this world instinctively loving horses or mules, but few instinctively know how to teach them. I've been collecting a lot of ideas from a lot of sources during my life, and books and videos make that easy and relatively inexpensive.
I have a very old book by Lt. Col. Harry Chamberlin, who, I discovered, is quite a famous bygone horseman. There is a passage in this book that says something like this: If your horse confidently goes and stops, backs up, turns right and left, what more do you want? When I read that, I literally threw all my dressage-influenced training notions right out the window. All it took was for someone to just SAY it to me, even from 80 years ago. I did not, however, throw away the good stuff I've learned from all the other voices to whom I've listened. It takes a special touch to put the "confidently" in Lt. Col. Chamberlin's advice.
Barb
Response by Brandon Z at 2014-04-08 21:31:23
Really good debate, but some of you guys need to open your minds a little. I learned from a very good horse trainer close to 20 years ago, something can be learned from every single self titled horse or mule trainer. Sometimes what you can do better and often times what not to do. Round Pens are very effective in my opinion, a lot can be done in there to better your chances of survival when the hooves meet the wide open. I won't start any equine without one. Long gone are the days when you throw them to the ground and roll 'em into the saddle and come up riding. Nobody puts the miles on there animals like they did way back when. Training needs to be done in a efficient manner to work in most people's schedule and the round pen is one way to make it that way. But trying to change some people's ways of thinking on training just ain't gonna happen, to put it simply. Happy Training......
Response by Neil A at 2014-04-08 21:33:38
Barb Lee I am so glad you posted that saying from LT. Col. Harry C. that sums it up in a nutshell. I will remember this the rest of my life it is so true. On a diffrent note I read a saying the other day I will remember and try to live by. It is non of my business what other think of me.
Response by Dave Schulz at 2014-04-09 01:22:24
Sometimes the only way people can get started is by books and videos. The old timers around here are mostly dead or gone . 30 yrs ago every ranch had a team and used them to at least feed cattle with. Now there are only 3 ranches that still feed with horses!
I knew how to drive horses but I had never trained one. Books and videos were all I had . I feel I ended up with better horses training them myself than if I had our local saddle horse experts try to train drafts to do work. books and videos gave me courage to start the process when I had no one else to coach me. Now I have 2 more to train this spring.
Response by Marshall at 2014-04-09 07:08:56
Barb, what is the name of the book by Lt Col Chaimberlin?
Response by Vince Mautino at 2014-04-09 10:07:38
Dave Shultz said "The old timers around here are mostly dead or gone"
Hey, I'm still here and I'm not dead!!!!!I think a lot of these so called trainers now days go off and get certified (what ever that means ) at one of the Ray Durrance, Tom Hunt, Pat Parrelii, etc. clinics and come back home and figure they can go to work. What happens is that they end up just mimicking what thier instructors told them. They don't have the 100-500 horses behind them inexperience to figure out what to do when a certain problem crops up that they haven't seen before.
These round pen clinicians teach their pupils to run the horse around, put the pressure on and then release a few times and the horse "joins up" and everything will be fine and dandy after that. Or they see the instructor work around the horse with a training whip with a plastic bag attached and figure, "Darn that works". They go home, catch up old dobbin and flip the flag at him.The horse vaults out of the pen, takes off for parts unknown and the owner is left standing there trying to figure out just what happened and doesn't have clue.
Response by Barb Lee at 2014-04-09 10:30:16
Marshall, the title of the book is simply, "Riding and Schooling Horses" published by the Armored Cavalry Journal in 1934. If you Google Lt. Col. Harry Chamberlin you find quite a bit of information about him. There's another priceless bit in the book, which I can't quote exactly, but in general it says, excessive training is, by the inexperienced, like placing a razor in the hands of a monkey.
Barb
Response by Barb Lee at 2014-04-09 17:18:03
"What happens is that they end up just mimicking what thier instructors told them. They don't have the 100-500 horses behind them inexperience to figure out what to do when a certain problem crops up that they haven't seen before."
Vince, I actually think that people end up mimicking the clinician because at some visceral level, they don't understand "why" a thing that the clinician does works. So all they have is the act, without the intuition to put the act to use intuitively, when there's no trainer around to scream orders at you.
One of my favorite sayings is, "I can explain it to you, but I can't understand it for you."
Parelli has a "thing" he calls "mosey". Just walking the horse here and there, letting it have a bite of nice grass. Now that sounds like a woo-woo, cutesie thing to do with the horse. But you know, I applied it, and as the horse's yanking for grass got to be annoying, I put it on cue. And when I got control of it, I went on to use it to teach my horse a fantastic whoa and take the barn sour clean out of him. When I was having so much trouble with the horse last year, I used grazing-on-command like Valium for the horse. The horse is so conditioned to wait for the cue to graze, that when I take him off the hot walker in the morning, he will not drop his nose into the grass...I can't push him away, and nothing I do will entice him to eat...but rather will walk beside me without a halter on, until I find the right spot of grass and give him the cue. Parelli never said anything about this except for its ability to improve a relationship with a horse. Most people would just end up with a dink that couldn't be kept from grazing. It turned into one of my most powerful tools for de-fusing my horse's problems and really seeking out my company.
The fact that some people put these methods to work for themselves brilliantly is proof that the successful ones have the "feel" while the general mechanics do not. A piece of music can be played by the gifted or by the mechanical. It isn't the fault of the composer if the latter makes a brilliant composition sound like a lovesick moose.
Barb
Response by KC FOX at 2014-04-09 21:01:36
the quote that I always remember from a video was (I have learned something from everyone Ive met and worked with the dumbest guy I met taught me some thing) Most of my best horses were spoiled when I got them, worked out there problems and they were great riding Horses. They were smarter than who was training them if I go to the barn and whistle I will have horses at the gate wanting in. Ive spent a lifetime learning, I can't tell you what I do or what to do, because I don't think I just do it.I could tell you stories about problem horses until Sunday but I won't. I to have learned from everyone Ive met or worked with, I bow my head in prayer & thanks to every one of them they made my life easer.
Response by Vince Mautino at 2014-04-09 23:02:52
You are 100% right Barb.
I knew Parelli back in the early 80's when he was selling his homemade videos out of a rented stall at the Bishop Mule Days in CA. He was training mules then, but switched to horses as he was starving. Then he had to support that new 2nd wife of his.
Not many mules back then as today.
His teachings today are about 180 degrees from what he was teaching back then.
Response by Barb Lee at 2014-04-10 09:39:53
Vince, I like to think I'm a WAY better horse trainer than I was in 1980, because of all the voices I've listened to over the years. Prob'ly even ol' Parelli has LEARNED through his years of achieving success...probably more about how to train people than how to train horses...and no doubt his ability to adapt and apply new techniques rather than scoff at others, is probably what has earned him a fortune.
Unfortunately, I know that these guys will also TAKE AWAY tools from a would-be trainer, such as lungeing, making ludicrous statements about its relative merits. I know one person who's scared to death to ride her explosive horse because her guru says lungeing is stupid and that "he wants that energy when he needs it." People who just want to hack along a quiet path don't need that explosive energy, and now this person thinks she'll rot for eternity if she burns off the dangerous energy by lungeing the horse for a half hour before she rides. I can think of all sorts of things that Parelli says to do that I wouldn't dream of agreeing to. But then, I know that there is subtle intuition behind the stuff that I have denied myself the experience of discovering. That doesn't make it stupid, it just means that I decline to do that thing. Maybe later I'll be ready to try it when the reasoning for the thing becomes more clear.
Barb
Response by Dan in Illinois at 2014-04-10 21:14:26
Learn all you can from whoever you can but never forget that only with sweat comes a good horse. Thats yours and theirs.
Response by Hard Paul at 2014-04-11 07:48:16
You have to wash a horses back for him to get good. Otherwise it will become sore.
Response by Paulk at 2014-04-11 09:33:52
I was eating supper the other night at about 8:45pm when my phone rang. It happened to be an Amish friend of mine and a long story short we got to discussing training my spooky mule and he made a good point. He said that the only way you have a good horse or mule is to work it 6 days a week and the reason most people need all these fancy training methods is because they are looking for the easy way. He even scolded me because I told him I had hauled 4 or 5 loads of manure over the last 2 weeks and he said you should be hauling 4 or 5 a day!
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