Dark Horse Hill

Monty Roberts, the father of Natural Horsemanship has passed away at the age of 91.

Whether you like Join-Up, or not, believe his methods were gentle or aversive or not, Monty paved the way for gentle horsemanship. He walked so that we could run.

Recently, the mother of Clicker Training with horses, Alexandra Kurland also passed away suddenly. I wrote to my friends on a group chat:

" Here we are watching pioneers die before their work reaches mainstream acceptance. How can we legibly discuss the negative side effects of R+ if the benefits are still up for debate? May she rest in peace and I thank her for her contributions."

Both Alexandra and Monty lived on differing ends of the spectrum of horse training. One worked with aversive pressure the other worked with additive reinforcement.

Both loved horses.

Both moved the needle in a very real way.

In 2014, I made the journey to central Germany from Poland to watch a Monty presentation. My school of horsemanship at the time was studying his methods and I thought it would be a good idea to go directly to the source, to see for myself. Because I had doubts if it was good for the horses or not.

When Monty worked with horses he was overflowing with love for them. I watched him demo his signature technique of Join-Up and make mistakes with his own technique. I saw the mistakes because I had studied the steps meticulously, and I was watching for correct application.

He buggered up and the horse was confused for several minutes, and I saw him have to work hard for a few seconds to get the horse back with him. This was all very subtle and probably under the radar for most. At the end not only was the horse really with him, the horse was emotionally at ease, and showing non-conditioned, non-requested signs of liking Monty. Affectionately nuzzling him, booping him, soft eyes, gentle expression.

I saw Monty weep openly in a crowd of 2000+ people when he helped a horse overcome a fear.

Then, while he held a talk with the crowd, one of his students and assistants stepped into the round pen to do the Join-Up for Monty, so that he could work on trailer loading. His student was technically perfect. Every step, every cue was in sequence, technically better than Monty. But his student held a hostility in his body, an emotional expression of anger or dominance toward the horse. When he initiated the flight response, the horses didn't run with an awareness of the assistant and listening. The horse tried to escape the assistant. When horses were initiated into a flight response by Monty, they moved away but stayed connected to him somehow.

I had an ahah moment sitting there in a cold arena in Germany that November.

The horses responded not to Monty's technique. They responded to Monty. To the feel he projected.

This was the genesis of Emotional Horsemanship for me. Transcending your technique and working with that as primary importance before the "Correctness of the Steps".

As the trends of the industry ebbed and flowed, I watched Monty's work fall out of favour with the ethics crowd. What in the 90's and early 2010's was deemed as cutting edge, now flipped and was espoused as coercive, violent and unethical.

If you read Monty's books, or went through his school materials, he was the first to say, and said regularly, he wanted all his students to be better than him, he wanted all his students to innovate past him and invent things even kinder to horses than he had.

Born in 1935, he was raised in an environment where horses were blindfolded and whipped, while tied to fence posts, until they lay down and gave up struggling. Join-Up was cutting edge for him and his peers. He moved the needle, truly moved the needle. And was a humble man who wanted innovation to continue past him.

He succeeded at that. We all moved past him.

Not only did he innovate training methods, he was a pioneer in his abilities to bring this to as many people as possible. He was a leader in the field of digital education. His online school was excellent and contained hundreds upon hundreds of high quality, helpful technical demonstrations, most demo'd by him, himself. He wrote excellent books. He spearheaded quality documentaries. He never shut himself away, got distracted or stopped talking about horses. He never rebranded himself as a Self-Help Guru, or got bored of training and started teaching business marketing.

He was focused on horses. From start to finish. Never wavered.

He created an industry where alternatives to violence could be considered legitimate, and held hard power with real estate, quality production value, and the approval of the Queen of England.

I remember speaking to a very famous horse trainer in the United States, who lived within 30 minutes drive of Monty Roberts.

"Why don't you relate to, speak to, or acknowledge Monty? He is in your neighborhood. He paved the way for us to do what we do today."

"Oh. Him. We don't approve of his methods."

I thought that showed a lack of humility and gratitude to the pioneers who paved the road, opened the door for alternative methods to have a foothold in the industry. How quickly people move to throw their competitors, the people who came before them, under the bus.

I respected Monty then more than that famous trainer who chose to live alongside Monty and not acknowledge him. Still do.

Alexandra I know less about. I do not have personal interactions with her. I did not study her. Yet I believe clicker training to be one of the most important additions to horse training in the last 50 years and the debate over it is ridiculous. We can do better by popping it as a tool into our tool box, stop debating over "Should We, Shouldn't We?"... and move forwards to the next innovation. As I understand it, Kurland was one of the first working professionals, if not THE first, to create structured Clicker Training protocols for Equines. That is pioneering work.

Here we are watching pioneers die before their work achieves mainstream acceptance (Kurland). Or watching them die without the correct acknowledgment of the trainers who are now benefitting from the opportunities they created for them (Roberts).

I try to mark these moments as important. Because I know that I have work today because people like Monty and Alexandra did much harder work before me. They faced much harder barriers, much higher push back than I ever did or ever will.

As much as they moved the needle, they also didn't. People are still fighting against R+ period. People still blindfold horses and beat them to train them. Monty and Alexandra's work is as relevant today as it was when they began.

It is up to us to not forget them, and continue the work. It is the best way we can thank them.

His heart was full of love, his 40+ foster children knew that too

Toddler Horsemanship Session 2 was our best yet! Thank you to everyone who joined us and please stay tuned for Session 3 registration!

Aside from my own babies sleeping, I don’t know if I’ve ever seen anything cuter!

Just a quick morning announcement 📣 that Toddler Horsemanship takes place Saturdays at 11:00am

There are some time zone errors on a few of the event notices here in Facebook. We are working to fix this as soon as possible.

Meanwhile we love you all, thank you for your interest and can’t wait to see you at Toddler Horsemanship Session 2 this Saturday!

Please see event info for more, text 905-683-5050 or dm us here.

Look at who arrived just in time for this Saturdays Toddler Horsemanship session #2!!

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Dm or text 905-683-5050 to reserve your spot. See you there!

The determined and focused Michelle Edmonds and Robert Grant hard at it making new trail for us to try!Thanks guys!!!

To all those interested in Therapeutic Riding…