From: Andy
Dear Jessica, hope you can help here by explaining something to me. My wife rides a lot, takes lessons and goes to clinics and all that. I have an old stock horse I just ride around the property. I never got into the fancy side of riding but I enjoy having some relaxed time on horseback. We signed up for a clinic quite a few months back, and last weekend was when it took place. My wife had talked me into coming along with my horse, she said that it would be good experience for me and we could trail-ride in between lessons. Well that wasn't the way it worked out at all. The fellow who was supposed to be teaching the lessons never taught anybody anything as far as I could see. He spent the whole time yakking about himself and how great he was and how fast he could get a saddle and bridle and rider on a horse. Like I said, my wife is the big rider in the family, but I've had horses all my life and I was raised on a ranch, and I know that what he was spouting was a load of bulls**t. We walked out of there feeling completely ripped off. Then one of my wife's best friends came over for a steak dinner a couple nights later with her husband, and come to find out they'd been there too and couldn't believe how bad it was. I know there's no hope of getting money back or anything like that, and I'm not looking to get that, but I sure wish there would be some way we could let people know what a ripoff artist this fellow is. He talked a lot about the vicious way everybody else broke horses until he came along, and that's another load of bulls**t I can tell you, because my uncle was a horsebreaker and he learned his ways from my granddaddy and he learned his from HIS granddaddy, and every one of them had a real easy, gentle way with horses. That's what I was taught right from the get-go. My daddy didn't care all that much about training horses, his brother did most of that, but he had some rules around our ranch, and there were two things that my brothers and I would get whipped for: sassing Mama and jerking a horse in the mouth. All our horses would come when we whistled for them. Of course, we didn't try to get them broke in thirty minutes, we had more sense than that. I guess this is just a kind of general rant about the kind of b.s. spouting phony horsemen we have runnning around this country pretending to be horsemen and Horse Whisperers and I don't know what all. I'm real glad that we have you and a few other people who know horses and know people and just plain have good sense. I'm seeing a lot less good sense these days, or maybe I'm getting old. I guess my question is, where the heck are all these whispering cowboys coming from, and is there anything we can do to get them to go back there? Andy
When the movie "The Horse Whisperer" had just come out, somebody interviewed Buck Brannaman (who acted as consultant on the training scenes in the movie) and asked him more or less the same question. He just shook his head and said something like "every starving cowboy is setting up to teach horsemanship clinics". It's business. It's money. It's nothing to do with the horses. Most of these fellows would be selling used cars if they thought it would get them the money and the adoration that they can get from crowds of people who don't know anything about horses or training.
So that's where they're coming from - they see these "clinics" for the gullible public as a way to get rich and famous. It's worked very well for some of them, who now ARE rich and famous, and unfortunately this encourages other phoney horsemen to do the same thing. It's too bad, because one of the unfortunate results of this is the proliferation of ignorant horse-owners who don't realize that they are still ignorant and still very much in need of real help. This is bad for the humans and very bad for the horses. There's also another unfortunate effect of the proliferation of what you call 'phony horsemen' - it takes attention away from the REAL horsemen who are simply teaching good horsemanship, the sort of thing that has existed since the beginning of time. I've said it before and I'll say it again now: Don't write off all of the "cowboys" because of a few high-profile phonies. You'll be missing out on some great information, and on the pleasure of seeing real horsemen at work. Ray Hunt is still giving clinics. Mark Rashid and Harry Whitney are both giving clinics. If you get a chance to see any or all of these gentlemen in action, take it.
Don't stop going to clinics, and don't discourage your wife or your friends from going to clinics - just be a little bit more particular about which clinics you go to. That way, you'll enjoy the experience, learn something useful, and have something positive and pleasant to talk about on the way home.
Jessica
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