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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