Horse Lovers Learning, Always Learning
By Suzy McMinn
Staff Writer
There are horse owners and there are horse lovers and sometimes a lucky horse gets both features in one owner/rider. Horse lovers are constantly trying to better ways of communication with their horse, trying to find a better, kinder way to relate and receive information from their favorite equine. Almost 1,000 horse lovers converged July 29-31 in Reno, Nevada, to learn tried and true ways of horsemanship from world renown, Pat Parelli, developer of Horse.Man.Ship. Parelli presented Wild Horse Taming Naturally, the calm and natural techniques featured by National Geographic’s 2001 documentary "America’s Lost Mustangs."
Parelli said, "Not only will this event show you the potential of mustangs when started naturally, it will teach you how to communicate with any horse while preserving their dignity and spirit, this event is sure to be beautiful, exciting, and educational. And, it was, it was incredible. Eight mustangs were provided for this weekend with cooperation from the Bureau of Land Management (BLM) and the Mustang Heritage Foundation. As the mustangs were herded into the large arena, Parelli on his great young horse, Troubadour, had his back to the mustangs and said to the audience, "I asked for mustangs of all different colors, size and sex." The audience had a great laugh out of Parelli’s comment because all eight mustangs were bays, (red-brown to gold-brown with black legs, manes and tails) and all were geldings and pretty much the same size. Parelli milked that subject until the crowd was roaring with laughter. "Go get the bay gelding," Parelli would say to one of his assistants. "Can you toss a loop over the bay gelding’s head?" "Please put the bay gelding into that corral."
As the learning experience went on, it became evident that even though the horses were the same color, same size, same sex, they all had extremely different "Horsenality." An aside here: though Pat and Linda Parelli have trademarked that word, it was because I was too young and stupid to think of such a thing when I would sing Lloyd Price’s 1959 song "(You’ve Got) Personality (Horsenality) to my horse. I was 13 years old, my horse was 16 years old and I would sing "you walk with horsenality, trot with horsenality, canter!
A hand-picked team of Colt Starting Specialists showed the how’s and why’s of unearthing the potential of the gathered mustangs. Seven horse experts were proceeding with wild horse taming on their picked "bay mustang gelding" as Pat rode herd on his crew with humor, coaching and having a surprise or two up his sleeve all-the-while working with the eighth mustang. Parelli asked that the eight mustangs be sorted into any of the three round pens lining the audience side of the arena. As you can imagine, that was asking for havoc. The horses had never had to do such a thing before and weren’t about to cooperate. They were a herd and planned to stay that way. Before much time went by, there were three mustangs in the first round pen, two in the second and three in the third.
Seeing how easily these horses were invited to enter these strange corrals was an education in itself about patience, communication and body language on the part of the trainers. Then Parelli asked that his assistants go the round pens and choose the mustang they were to work for the three days. All Parelli’s handlers wore distinctive shirts with their own color and their name on the back of the shirt in large letters so the audience could keep track of which trainer was where and with which what horse. Wrangler jeans, boots and western hats were also a part of their appearance.
Parelli was informative, teaching the audience what was happening in the arena areas. When we saw a trainer hanging on to a mustang via a lariat, Parelli explained the method of pull on horse’s neck rope and give instant release as soon as mustang yields. The reward is the release and the horse soon learns this principle. Of course, there were times when it looked like the mustang was teaching the handler how to sand ski around the pen.
The assistants were all Instructors and Horse Development Specialists from Parelli’s school in Pagosa Springs, Co. I congratulate these special young people; Rhett Fincher, John Baar, Kalley Krickeberg, Berin Mac-Farlane, Ryan Rose, James Robert, Jake Shoemark, becoming Horse Development Specialists after leaving their homes in Colorado, Illinois, Michigan, Australia, and the United Kingdom. Their communication skills helped these mustangs take important steps down the road to becoming partners with horse lovers and owners.
Pat Parelli says, "Equs equals love." By using love, language and leadership, Parelli is on a mission to help create a better world for horses and humans, working to inspire, empower and educate through natural horsemanship. To learn more, visit www.parelli.com
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