Talk:Horse breaking

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Hello, I removed 'reacting in about the same way a young child reacts to getting a hypodermic injection, or the first haircut with a barber's buzzing shears' but it got reverted. I thought it was a poor analogy open to too much interpretation; I've seen children react very differently to both situations.

I'd suggest changing it to simply state the facts of the reaction - bucking, agitated movement etc.

Thanks

John

Was this article (Horse_breaking )written by the original poster? RickK 03:27, 4 Sep 2003 (UTC)


yes

Patrick0Moran 03:34, 4 Sep 2003 (UTC)

Thanks, Patrick. It's very well-written, that's why I'm asking.  :) RickK 03:37, 4 Sep 2003 (UTC)

Thank you for the kind words. I can write it since I have been riding horses for the last 50 years and have "broken" one Arabian mare. (Actually, on occasion she has just about broken me. ;-)

I thought about going back and changing the words "horse breaking" in the article that calls this article, but then I decided that most people call it "horse breaking" and there is no other generally accepted term for it, and that it would be better to straighten out the misconception than to ignore it by wording around it somehow.

I have found that most people edit in a very responsible way, and many things that I have written, such as this one, are essentially first-drafts (with typos removed, maybe) so there can often be considerable room for improvement.

Thank you for your efforts on behalf of this great project!

Patrick0Moran 03:51, 4 Sep 2003 (UTC)


I just discovered that there is another article called "horse-breaking". I wrote the article on "horse breaking" because there was a red link to that topic on the Domestication of the horse page. Was the "horse-breaking" article linked to anything?

The "horse-breaking" article has been around for a while. It has many strong points, but it gives Monty Roberts credit for some things that, if I remember correctly, he himself credits to Rarey and/or other earlier people. Monty Roberts's real contribution was the discovery of what he calls the language of the horse, the system of communications through which horses deal with misbehavior and negotiate terns for resumption of friendly and cooperative relationships. Others who have written on this subject following Roberts's original book on the subject have suggested, if I am reading the stuff between the lines correctly, that they knew about "submissive behavior" and all of that too. I have been aware of Rarey's work since the 1950s, and have read several other book by highly regarded and responsible equestrians, and I've never seen a hint of anything more than some general signs of horse attitude being noticed. That means that in the roughly 3000 years during which people have been living in close association with horses, Roberts was the first to see the significance of behavior that most people who have been around horses a lot have probably noticed but have let drop back out of consciousness.

The critics of Roberts have one thing correct: Most of what he says to the general reader has been said by others. Sometimes, e.g., in saying things like "If you act like you have all day it may take you fifteen minutes. If you act like you only have fifteen minutes it may take you all day," he paraphrases Rarey. But that is just what all the other writers have been doing. In fact, I would be hard put to find anything really crucial that Xenophon hadn't already writen about centuries ago (not much detail, though) -- except for Roberts's great discovery.

It is inaccurate to suggest that humane horse breaking was a discovery of the last half of the 20th century. However these articles are merged I think it would be a good idea to demonstrate the historical continuity of both the "breaking" and the "gentling" approaches from Xenophon on down. It is perhaps relevant that the "bronc riding" tradition in 19th and 20th century practice seems to have come out of the working rodeo (not the competition), the roundup of horses grown without human company on the range, their branding, and their "breaking" so they could be sold as "green broke" mounts to the cavalry or wherever they went. Presumably the belief was that bronk riding was fast and economical. One of Roberts's efforts has been to prove that horses like "Shy Boy" can be taken out of feral mustang herds, negotiated with, and ridden in short order yet with no trauma to the body of psyche of the horse.

-- Just some thoughts.

Patrick0Moran 04:33, 4 Sep 2003 (UTC)

Please envisage a reader who has no idea what "Horse breaking" is and write an opening paragraph or two that actually explains and defines it. As it stands, the article is probably great (I can't tell since I don't know anything about it) but makes too many assumptions. -- Tarquin 23:16, 25 Sep 2003 (UTC)

Contents

[edit] article too long and off topic

this article is overly long and too philosophical.

instead simply giving an overview of common horse breaking technique with some history, it went meta-talk on and on about its history and controversies and critiques.

people who come here mostly want to know:

  • what is "horse breaking"
  • an overview of the practices.

then, perhaps introduce some history, issues, and philosophical things.

If you would sign your postings it would be somewhat easier to tell one person's remarks from another's.

When a word that does not convey a reality very well gains currency, then that word can distort people's understanding of the reality. Examining an "empty" gasoline storage tank by striking a match to illuminate what is inside, for instance, can reveal a deadly distortion in one's picture of reality.

Most people call the way humans get horses to let themselves be ridden "breaking" a horse. The term "horse breaking" then gives rise to the presumption that the horse has to be forced to submit its will to the wills of human beings.

On top of that, people have argued from the presumed fact that horses have to be "civilized" by breaking their wills to the false conclusion that humans must also be "broken" before they can safely be permitted to share a society with other human beings. So there are reasons both for the safety and well-being of horses, and also for the safety and well-being of human beings, to explain clearly why what they have learned to call "horse breaking" does not, for the most effective trainers, involve breaking horses.

A certain amount of care needs to be exercised to counteract the presumptions that will have formed in the average reader's mind by reason of the prejudicial terminology used, and by reason of seeing a "brute force" method used in rodeo performances of so-called "bronc busting." (Usually if anything gets busted it is the rider.)

If one were to say what one actually does to "break" a horse, it would take a very long discussion that would involve much branching to take care of special responses needed for various reasons. Even given such a set of directions, the average reader could make little or nothing of it by reason of not understanding why certain things have to be done. It is much more efficient to discuss the principles involved, and again, because of the weight of preconceptions carried by most people, it is worthwhile pointing out that people have known an effective way of forming cooperative relations with horses, methods that do not involve breaking the horse's will, for a very long time.

Patrick0Moran 01:11, 23 Nov 2003 (UTC)

The long text blocks on this page make it less easy to follow than if there were sub-sections. Is anyone more familiar with the material and interested in doing that? --zandperl 04:48, 17 Feb 2004 (UTC)

[edit] Tying it all together

I cut this text from 'advocates of force'

Please identify yourself. P0M 02:48, 19 Feb 2004 (UTC)
Some people have advocated reforms in horse breaking, notably horse trainer Monty Roberts, author of the best-seller The Man Who Listens to Horses. His methods of "gentling" horses were dramatized in The Horse Whisperer (directed by star Robert Redford). A documentary on his methods is A Real Horse-Whisperer.
[P0M:]This information regarding the book is incorrect. It was Rarey not Roberts. The method used near the end of the movie is pure Rarey. I am pretty sure Roberts would reject it.
Roberts studied the behavior of horses in the wild and discovered that by imitating the behavior of a herd's lead mare he could ask for a stallion's cooperation rather than demanding its submission.
[P0M:]Stallion? More misinformation. The method is not sex-dependent.

[P0M:] Para 1 above not true. See below. Para 2 is true, and Roberts made a great contribution. But Rarey was advocating "gentling" horses in the 1850s. Unfortunately people get taken up with Roberts's work and speak/write without knowledge of history. P0M 22:42, 18 Feb 2004 (UTC)

[edit] A plan

There are over a thousand words in several articles about horse taming. Let's collect the article titles here:

[edit] Roberts

Some interesting things about Monty Roberts

  • Rebelled against his father's violent methods
  • Independent discovery of herd behavior
  • Controversy over effectiveness of his approach
  • Controversy over whether he credits forerunners enough
  • Was he the object of Robert Redford's movie?

[P0M:] It is clear that he was not the object of the book from which the movie was made. The book makes specific reference to John Rarey.P0M 22:38, 18 Feb 2004 (UTC)

[edit] Redirect is circular

By directing "Present-day proponents of subordinating horses by force" a circular reference has been created. P0M 23:47, 18 Feb 2004 (UTC)


[edit] Section Headings Established

I just put in section headings. I can't do anything about giving the "forced submission" folks equal time with the folks who don't favor those methods because I have never seen a single book that advocates such a position. I've been riding for 50 years, so one might assume that I would have noticed such a book by now. P0M 02:42, 19 Feb 2004 (UTC)

Patrick, I'm the unidentified guy in the Tying it all together section above. I love horses and admire Roberts. I did confuse him with Rarey, though: I assumed that the phrase real horse whisperer was Roberts' way of chiding Redford for "using his life" in an underhanded way. I should have checked on that instead of "making an ASS out of U and ME" :-(

[P0M:]Actually, I'm pretty sure that Monty Roberts makes explicit reference to Rarey. I'll have to check; should have cited it already.

[P0M:]I looked for the "horse whisperer" novel at home last night. I'm pretty sure that the book makes it perfectly clear that Rarey was the model. I think the first time the question came up I just leafed through a copy in the supermarket. That being said, Roberts is probably controversial because he is both an excellent horseman and a showman. Many of the things that he says are paraphrases of things that Rarey wrote 150 years ago. But it may be that those sayings have passed into general lore and Roberts didn't remember where he had learned them.

--Lil Peck 23:15, 2 October 2005 (UTC) (Belated note here.) Just wanted to add that "Nicholas Evans" makes it clear on his website that Monty Roberts was NOT the inspiration for his horse-whisperer character, Tom Booker. Evans posted >I spent many weeks traveling across the West and met three amazing horsemen: Tom Dorrance, Ray Hunt and Buck Brannaman. Some of you may have read that someone called Monty Roberts was the model for Tom Booker, The Horse Whisperer in the book, and that he helped me with my research. It's not true. met Mr Roberts once, briefly, in England but have never seen him with a horse or seen him since. He had no involvement whatsoever.>

[P0M:]:Is it okay with you if I edit your prose a bit more, anyway? I'd like to systematize all the wonderful information you've supplied us. How horses and people have interacted, what training methods work best, what is the most humane way humans can treat their equine friends... :-) --Uncle Ed 14:23, 19 Feb 2004 (UTC)

[P0M:] Part of the trouble is that there is a lot of detritus hanging around that I did not want to just rip out for fear of starting an edit war -- and also because it's hard to prove a negative. The stuff that I added section heads to is all my original prose, I think. I tried to stave off flames by moving some of the unsubstantiated stuff to other articles. (Oh, and recently I found out that there is another article called "horse-breaking" that, unbeknownst to me, somebody else had created. It's full of stuff that may or may not be true, and I don't want to try proving too many negatives.)

[P0M:] Since you are interested in Roberts, what do you think of creating a section on current proponents of the art. There are loads of people out there who are doing wonderful work. Podhojski's accounts of heading up the Spanish Riding School during and immmediately after the Second World War are wonderful. (He's the only grand authority with the guts to say that he got stuck with riding the antsyest Lippizan stallion of the whole group because it would regularly throw the other master riders, and if he didn't ride it the others would say that "the old man can't ride the beast so he gives it to me to deal with." Everybody else has perfect horses that never shy at firecrackers, much less at kittens that jump out of a clump of grass. So I feel better about the mare I've ridden but not broken who has made me lose count of the number of times I've involuntarily bailed out.) Jessica Jahiel is a wonderful and generous teacher who has a list-serv that is very useful. There are a dozen or so other people who write books, sell tapes, etc., etc., and I have never looked at them because I grew up with Margaret Cabell Smith, et al., who wrote back in the 50s.

[P0M:] I've had people tell me that the way to cure a horse of rearing up is to crack it on the head with a coke bottle, but I've never seen any of them selling books or giving clinics. Jessica Jahiel appears to hold Monty Roberts in contempt, probably that is professional jealousy. She also decries the method of working things out with abused horses that Rarey uses (depicted very accurately in the movie, by the way), but I think it is because the method could easily be perverted to a form of abuse. The method of "sacking out" makes perfect sense if you gradually get horses used to things that might freak them out if encountered suddenly and at full forse. (Imagine, for instance, how you could train a police horse not to bolt at the sound of gunfire.) But if you tie a horse up and then light a firecracker under him that is not sacking out -- except, apparently, in the view of some people who think the object of sacking out it to terrify the horse.

[P0M:] All of this stuff needs to be sorted out, but I don't really have the time to buy books and tapes and see what the current crop of experts are doing. Actually, I was amazed to find that Xenophon knew all of the basics except the "equine language" that Roberts discovered. Other people take the same points and blow a sentence up to a chapter, and that is useful because it fills in lots of the details, but if your really understand the principles in Xenophon you know about as much as you can know (exclusive of little tips like, "If the horse pins its ears back, he's getting ready to fight somebody").

[P0M:] The account in Roberts' first book of his father's methods could be NPOVed I guess. I can't think of a single other place (except for the really medeival stuff) where anybody has written down what they do to break down the will of horses. (I saw somebody locally who had a yearling tied with ropes and inner tubes a few years ago. I guess the horse couldn't have broken its neck, but it was trying. If they'd have tried that with my horse she probably would have broken something -- or somebody. I just put a rope on her halter, wrapped it half way around a tree, and let her get used to the idea that she could get loose if she had to and that nothing bad was going to happen in the meantime. I'd rather have her able to break a rope to get free if she needs to sometime than to have her be like an elephant that can be tied with a length of baling twine. It's safer for her that way.)

[P0M:] What do you think of the section headings? Maybe there are too many? I just did a fast job to see how it would look. P0M 19:33, 19 Feb 2004 (UTC)

First impression while skimming through it, is it's great! Section headings could be a BIT shorter, but I don't want to TIE YOU UP, if you feel SKITTISH about changing them. How I got ROPED IN to this, I'll never know. -- Mister Ed

[P0M:] I removed the link to "present-day proponents of forced submission". P0M 03:48, 21 Feb 2004 (UTC)

[edit] Sad first impression on horse-breaking article

Unfortunately, because the horse-breaking article spent over one-third of its total copy discussing Monty Roberts and his methods, my first reaction was, "Gee, I wonder how much Mr. Roberts paid Wikipedia for THAT one." The article is unbalanced and narrowly focussed, and gives the APPEARANCE of a sponsored link or a product placement. This, alas, damages the credibility of the article and of Wikipedia in general. I am happy to discuss my comments in private mail.

-- Laura (fullpwr@1earth.net)

§ Laura, I don't know Monty Roberts. He didn't pay me any money, nor did he pay Wikipedia any money, and to in any way suggest that he did or even would is disrespectful to him. The article begins with Xenophon, not with anybody in the 20th century, and has almost nothing to say about Monty Roberts the person. If the methods of John Solomon Rarey were not already on-line in a complete and probably very stable form (being put their by his descendants), I would have copied out a summary of his methods from an old book I have that is beyond the copyright limits. That would have given Roberts less than a third, maybe less than a quarter of the article. Comparison between Rarey's work and Roberts's writing will show that almost everything that Roberts says was said by Rarey. Comarison between what Rarey said (around 1850) and what Xenophon said will show that there is almost nothing new under the sun. [P0M]

§ That being said, just as Rarey taught a new and a good method of rehabilitating horses that had been abused, Roberts himself made a very significant discovery regarding equine communications, and that was the only reason for including him in the article. What he learned provides a method for "breaking" (hate that word) horses that is not necessary (Xenophon got along quite well without it), but certainly far better than the abusive methods that are still being used today by some people. If I had to choose between his method for starting a three year old that had been on pasture all its life and what I saw when I went to examine a group of 20 or so yearlings on sale at a local stable, then I would definitely choose his method. That breeder/trainer also had lots to say about how dangerous horses are... [P0M]

§ Strangely, I've never had horses that rear, that bite, that kick, or are otherwise dangerous, just as I've never had dogs that bite people who walk down the road in front of my place. So I am inclined to believe Xenophon, Rarey, Podhajsky, Roberts, Margaret Cabell Self, et al. P0M 06:44, 27 Apr 2004 (UTC)

There's an article entitled Horse whisperer which focuses on gentling methods. While, by and large, Monty Roberts has a good message, and he is very popular, he does get a little too much credit for something which has been going on a long time, and before him in the 20th century, notably such individuals as Tom Dorrance and Ray Hunt, as well as all of Roberts' contemporaries. --Bryan

Horse Breaking isn't necessarily a kind sounding term, but today, it doesn't necessarily mean cruelty - it's just a term referring to Horse Starting, whether the method is inhumane or not. Another term is Horse Gentling. --Bryan

§ Unfortunately some people still practice horse breaking as a breaking of the will and the resistance of horses. I've seen it with my own eyes, and I've had one person tell me to tie a fractious horse out in the sun for two or three hours before riding to take the starch out of him.

§ There is a need for more work on the present-day people Bryan mentions. The Horse Whisperer novel and movie were explicitly based on John Solomon Rarey. I didn't feel qualified to say anything about the people coming after Rarey, mostly because I got turned on to Rarey when I first started riding 50 years ago and kind of let it go at that. When I got my "wild Arabian mare" a couple of acquaintances sent me Roberts's book. By that time I was already to the point that I had established that she was perfectly willing to let me lie like a sack of grain on her back, so "join up" didn't seem to be an issue and I got by with what Rarey quotes from Powers (?) in his book. A lot of people do not like Monty Roberts, but I personally don't have any problem with him. He says lots of the same things that Rarey says, but that could be from sayings he has absorbed from the oral tradition. He's definitely a showman, and that may turn some people off. But the fact is that he discovered something about equine communication and cooperation that other people must have observed before without twigging to its significance. He deserves credit for that. I'm pretty sure that I observed the "I'm just another herbivore, let's talk," behavior before reading his book, and I'm pretty sure that I've heard the distinctive "teeth marimba" sound before, but to me it was just random stuff that some horses do for no good reason. Some people seem not to want to give him credit for discovering what is really going on, but I haven't seen anybody citing an earlier published report on it.

§ Anyway, it would be ideal if somebody (Bryan ?) who has read Cherry Hill, John Lyons, Tom Dorrance, Ray Hunt, Jessica Jahiel, et al. would put together an article on the modern "state of the art." It's a bit tricky because there are evidently people out there who think that "sacking out" a horse means to terrify it, and who "throw down a horse" as some means of establishing dominance instead of doing what Rarey was doing with his technique. (I've heard nice people make caustic comments on these variants of Rarey's methods, comments that would probably lead others to think that Rarey was an abusive trainer.) And somebody will likely insist that the new article should not represent the single POV that it is good to be humane when "breaking" horses. (Somebody once wrote that if I didn't believe in bronc busting I should educate myself by going to a rodeo or two. I think that person totally misunderstands the sport, but anyway...) I think that I took some of the information left over from the original "horse breaking" article and put it in a sort of a stub and a half for such an article. That writer also had some ideas about Roberts's methods that I thought were probably wrong because I hadn't read them in his stuff, but then I haven't necessarily read and/or remembered everything that Roberts has written. The best I have been able to do with the "non-humane methods" category is to state that there are people who clearly are using these methods, but that they seem not to be getting books published. And I have listed the major figures from the past who were listed by Margaret Cabell Self as making names for themselves by their "break their wills" methods. Good luck with it if you try.

§ The article that needs supplementing is Present-day proponents of establishing cooperative relationships between humans and horses P0M 03:27, 5 May 2004 (UTC)

[edit] Way too much credit given to Roberts!

I've grown up as a horseman, and had never read of or heard of Monty Roberts until his book was released after the novel "The Horse Whisperer" was a bestseller.

My experience with horses goes back to the late 1950's. As I have seen it, horsemen have always been open to better ways to train horses.

Along with this are improved breeding practices, as those animals that are gifted with trainability are selected and bred to each other.

Long before Monty Roberts began cashing in on the horse-trainer-as-guru craze that peaked at the time "The Horse Whisperer" was released as a movie, other trainers had published books and videos and held seminars and demonstrations about horse training.

For a counterview of Robert's book, see Horse Whispers And Lies and Citizens For Justice Duh 05:18, 20 Dec 2004 (UTC)

Are you saying that the article, as it stands at present, gives too much credit to Roberts? Or that Roberts gives too much credit to Roberts? Or what? My own experience goes back to the mid 50s, and somehow I learned about Rarey early on. Some people try to blame him for other people's misapplication of his techniques, or distortion of his techniques. I'd rather see more credit given to good horsemen and good teachers from Xenophon on down, than to see some attempt to vent spleen on Roberts.

It's a good idea to sign your postings. Unsigned postings are frequently supplied by devious people and so people who are not devious find things generally work out better if they at least give themselves a handle. P0M 04:57, 20 Dec 2004 (UTC)

The article gave far too much credit to Roberts. And yes, Roberts also gave himself too much credit. There has been controversy over Robert's book. A few years ago, Horse & Rider magazine published an expose about Roberts, which resulted in a lawsuit that was settled out of court and the agreements kept private.

No, we did not all beat our horses mercilessly into submission until Roberts showed us the errors of our ways. Roberts began giving clinics many years AFTER others had already become famous (and in a couple of cases, rich) as horse training gurus. Duh 05:26, 20 Dec 2004 (UTC)

[edit] Willis J. Powell

[edit] Willis J. Powell

My great great grandfather was Willis J. Powell who is the Powell that is refered to by J.S. Rarey in later books. Willis J. Powell wrote a book with J.S. Rarey who added a section on The Breaking, Training and Taming horses. The name of the book was "Tachyhippodamia; on The New Secret of Taming Horses" My 2nd great grandfather died around 1848 and this book was published before he died but with no publishing date. A later reprint was in 1872 in Philidelphia by W.R. Charter. It can still be purchased as a rare book. He credits an earlier "horse whisperer" from Ireland in the opening pages. He traveled from Louisiana to Mexico where he lived for about 12 years, Cuba, Guatamala and Califormia taming horses and apparently made a good living doing so. He also was a polyglot speaking six languages, greek, latin, french, spanish, english and horse. This may account for the title of his book. I commend this little book those who wish to enjoy the history of horse whispering. Michael Haugh

[edit] reversion to earlier more correct version

Someone had reverted this article to an earlier version that was little more than a promotional homage to a particular horse training clinician who sells books and videos. That was in opposition to the "neutral point of view" that wikipedia is supposed to have. I have reverted the article to a more neutral version that is about the topic of "horse breaking" rather than a commercial.

Please sign your postings.
Thank you for removing the text. If it belongs anywhere, it belongs in the article on "present-day proponents". Oddly, almost everyone seems either to be a proponent or an enemy of Monty Roberts, and nobody who seems willing to go through the objective (no flames) stuff on Roberts in that article, check to see that what is said to be what he teaches and what he claims is really so and then provide citations to those assertions. Neither has anyone been willing to add much if anything to fill out the sketchy stuff I put in about other present-day proponents. People were willing to claim them as "the greatest," but not willing to spend the time to write even a paragraph or two about what is special about them. I know that Jessica Jaheil is a great teacher. I received her semi-regular e-mail postings of answers to readers' questions and thought that she was just about always right on. So it is a shame that somebody who really know something about her, or about some of the other current experts, will not give them a little well-deserved coverage.
So if someone comes to this article again and wants to put in stuff on current-day experts, please take it to the appropriate place. Such contributions would be more than welcome if they can maintain a neutral point of view. P0M 17:09, 2 October 2005 (UTC)
I just discovered that the "present-day proponents" article appears to have been deleted. The appropriate place for contributions on current trainers would appear to add a new article via the article on Horse whisperers. The article as it stands just lists a bunch of names with links to articles on them that do not exist, so some real contributions would be useful. P0M 17:41, 2 October 2005 (UTC)

--- --Lil Peck 20:11, 2 October 2005 (UTC) : I had seen that the "present day proponents" was under a NPOV dispute (although I was not involved in that). I am surprised that the article has been deleted, but have not read it recently and so do not know what it had evolved into. The article "Monty Roberts" appears to be currently under a NPOV dispute as well but I have no objections to it as it is at this time. As you know so well, I am not a Monty Roberts accolyte, because of my objections to the differences between the message the man preaches "Violence is never the answer," and some of the violent things that it has been alleged that he has done (such as striking an old man who was in a race with him, and hitting the old man's mule in the face), and killing his own horse Brownie by working the animal to exhaustion. However, I understand that it is true that the gentleman is a talented horse trainer and that he is very intelligent and charming. One may still learn from him even if perhaps one bears the personal opinion that it would be inappropriate to invite him into schools to give presentations to teachers and children.

Ħ Personally, I'd like to stay away from the Monty Roberts snake pit. Somebody else can try to force a NPOV treatment of him as an individual if they want to get angry and frustrated. The only thing is that he made one stunning discovery and he deserves credit for it. P0M 23:52, 2 October 2005 (UTC)

[edit] POV notice

I've moved the following from the top of the page:

Hey
I put a POV dispute on this page. This article glosses over the old methods of breaking a horse, and while even though many people dont believe in physically "breaking" a horse, it should still be covered in the article along with the modern ways of breaking a horse.
siZors

Please sign your messages with four tilde's. You can just click on the four right after "Sign your name" below the input box on the Editing page. Or you can type in ~~~~

Putting a POV warning says, in essence, that the poster challenges the intellectual honesty, the objectivity, of an article, not just that somebody thinks something important is missing. It goes on after somebody gets frustrated at the end of lots of wrangling and positions are hardened up without there being any change.

I know that abusive means of breaking horses are still in use. I've seen some of it with my own eyes, but I can't report on what I have seen for two reasons: (1) It's only one case, and maybe it's the only case that every occurred in the last umpteen years in the U.S., and I'm pretty sure that trainer would deny the whole thing. (2) Making such a report would constitute an "original research," which is not permitted to us.

If you have materials and citations, please bring them on. P0M 04:51, 26 July 2006 (UTC)

The comment "he clearly understands..." in "The Earliest Master Trainers" does not seem like NPOV. It indicates that Xenophone is correct, and that other trainers are wrong. Now, I'm not saying he is or isn't correct, just that it should be rewritten somehow, like:
Xenophone's methods indictated that he believed that the basis..."
There are other remarks, like "savoring the original discussion," that make this article seem POV. So, maybe siZors reason wasn't quite correct (although I can see why he said the "other side" needs to be covered as well), but there are still POV issues here. Tanyia 17:40, 28 August 2006 (UTC)
My gripe with much of this article is that it's all Monty Roberts, all the time, even though his name isn't there any more...Rarey is one of many "horse whisperer" types that is not really part of the "canon" of horsemanship; other than Monty, who has ever really talked abut the guy? Further, if we are going to go down the "horse whisperer" road, then omission of Tom Dorrance is pretty significant, he had far more influence on the modern movement. But overall, I just am tired of the "natural horsemanship is a whole new thing" movement. Aside from the legitimate people --published-- like Young, Williamson, Monte Foreman, etc., who have advocated the same techniques for western horses for almost a century (without need for line of name brand equipment and their own TV show), "gentle breaking" has been strongly advocated for a good two or three centuries, usually called DRESSAGE!Montanabw 18:11, 28 August 2006 (UTC)

[edit] It's a bigger world than the wild wild west

Folks, I don't want to make any wholesale changes in this particular article, though I think it needs a lot of work. But I think that there is a need for some better organizing of the entire horse training section. "Horse breaking" is sort of a "wild west" term and a highly controversial one at that. If anything, I think we would do better with a three-part article labeled "Horse Training." Section one would be about "starting" colts, section two would be "training" or "finishing" horses, and part three would discuss various specializations or schools of training for those who want to dig deeper. We could add something about "controversies" if we wanted to. Right now, things are a mess. If one starts with the Horse training stub as a search, one mostly finds various "Natural Horsemanship" oriented articles, and probably less than half of what is actually buried in Wikipedia. There isn't even a link to the extensive equestrianism article. It is difficult if not impossible to find articles that focus on classical training methods used by Dressage riders (the Dressage article is mostly competition-focused, not training focused--and probably has to be that way). Where are the discussions about the methods of Reiner Klimke? Or Alois Podhsjski? Or Paul Belasik? Or Henry Wynmalen? Or, for that matter, de la Guerinere? I could go on, but won't. My point? I think that we need to go find EVERYTHING that is buried out there, link it all from some kind of disambiguation page (or maybe even make a category out of it if someone knows how to do that) and then create different articles about each school so everyone has a place for their pet theory. For example, neither the horse training page nor this one list the other major players in the "horse whisperer" game--Parelli, Lyons, Cameron, that Australian guy, etc...not that I am a huge fan of any of them, but they all are disciples of the Dorrance/Hunt schools and as such are appropriate for some kind of mention somewhere. Anyone want to start on this, I think it is a good idea and will improve the overall quality and NPOV of the horse articles in Wikipedia. Montanabw 20:30, 26 July 2006 (UTC)

Articles often get started as stand-along things when they should be articles subsidiary to an umbrella article, so I wholeheartedly support your suggestion. A couple of people worked on an article on Monty Roberts, and then other people came in to accuse him of all sorts of things and asking why only he got mentioned. I tried to take a historical approach and cover the basics from Xenophon down to John Solomon Rarey, and then let other people handle the modern trainers. So I made one article that listed all of the good trainers that had been mentioned by critics who wanted such articles, and asked that the people who thought that Lyons was good at least put in the basics of his method. I salvaged a certain amount that had already been written about Monty Roberts and included it there too. I've been too busy with other things to go back to that article, but it is on my watch list so if anybody ever added even a sentence or two about other trainers I think I would have noticed.
In the process of doing this stuff I wrote something on Rarey and mentioned that his book incorporated a lot from a person named Powell, to whom he give due and even generous credit in his own book (Unlike Monty Roberts, who perhaps unknowingly quotes of paraphrases Rarey frequently). I was quite pleasantly surprised when a lineal descendent of Powell sent me an e-mail and told me his given name. I was then able to track back to his teacher whose name was Danny Sullivan.
I just found a unashamed "beat them till they resist no more" account of "Taming the Wild Horse" in a 1939 book by someone named Arthur Vernon and entitled The History and Romance of the Horse, so it may be possible to do an article on this subject, but what would we call it that would not be a POV title? How about "Breaking horses by breaking their spirits"? At least this author says, "A trained wild horse is a broken-spirited horse." Unfortunately this article has nothing in it about tying a yearling between two sturdy trees and letting him buck and struggle until either his spirit or something else breaks. (p. 135) P0M 22:31, 26 July 2006 (UTC)
I think there is no need to go to the ends of the earth to explain it all. There are also European "masters" who advocated absolutely barbaric training practices, particularly for the heavy horses ridden by armored knights. We could write books about this, and here we just have an encyclopedia article subject to a 32KB suggested limit. My thinking is that what you have in this article is essentially a history of one set of training methods that is today expressed by Monty Roberts. The Dorrance/Ray Hunt/group is sort of another line, somewhat related in methodology but from different sources. Everyone claims their origins with Xenophon, but of course, just like there's one Bible and ten gazillion different denominations all claiming to be the true faith, every school of horse training claims to be the true descendant of the ancient Greeks! <grin>
I haven't checked to see if there is a separate Monty Roberts article, but if there is, probably some of this material should go there(?) In the meantime, I will mull over what can be done with the horse training article, and if you want to put it on your watch list and add links there to any other articles you find, we can at least use it as a quasi-category until something more polished can be created.
FYI: Full disclosure: My training guru is probably Charles O. Williamson, who I like to refer to as "the forgotton Horse Whisperer." He originally wrote Breaking and Training the Stock Horse back in the 1930's when most of these other pups weren't even a gleam in the eye! Another interesting fellow that was a significant influence on western training but doesn't get much notice today is Monte Foreman. I also find Robert Miller's Revolution in Horsemanship useful as a reference guide to all the current gurus out there as well as a very good review of most of the old-timers the predated the modern fad. He does a pretty good job of summarizing the universal principles they all use and then sort of providing a program of the players. Montanabw 18:40, 27 July 2006 (UTC)
Personally, I never wanted to do anything more than copy the list from Margaret Caball Self's book of the abusive trainers of the distant past.
I wish I could remember how I learned about John Rarey. I read his book in the library in 1960 and was very much impressed by it. As a result of some debates that occurred last summer I traced the history of his movement back to Ireland. Dan Sullivan was supposed to have learned his method from "a gypsy," and he was evidently the first person to be called a "horse whisperer" because he would appear to get real close to the horse's head as though whispering something to it. He seems to have believed that odors are important to horses. I don't remember the details, but his abilities to deal with horses that other people couldn't handle was impressive enough to get him invited to the royal court in England. Anyway, whatever he learned was passed on to Powell, and from Powell to Rarey. I've always wondered what happened between 1850 or so when he was active and 1960 when I learned about him. Somebody must have written about him in a horse magazine or in some library book I found. Anyway, Monty Roberts is either "channeling" him or has at least read his book. That's not to say that Roberts doesn't have his own things too, just that there does seem to be a connection. So I wonder about some of the other master trainers. If training horses was your thing and you asked around for the best books on the subject for long enough then you could have found about Rarey pretty easily.
The thing about Xenophon is that he states all of the basic principles. He has the basic idea of "sacking out", for instance, but he gives you the basic clue to it in a short paragraph or so, and that's it. In our time somebody might take the same idea, think of all sorts of ways to implement it, include lots of cautions that wouldn't be new to somebody who had lived with horses all his life, and make a whole book out of it. I think it would be hard to be a good horseman or trainer and go against anything he said. So in that sense anybody who is a good trainer can legitimately claim to be a follower of his.

It makes me feel guilty to disclose how long ago Ed Poor and I started: Wikipedia:WikiProject horse training. I've got lots of other things to work on, and it is easy to let things get lost. Maybe you could improve the ideas/topics listed there. P0M 04:35, 28 July 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Cleanup

Here's a list of things I think need some work (feel free to add!).

  • POV
I feel like we should describe the techniques themselves, and not classify them as "humane" or "inhumane." There is too much judgement in this article, and while I agree that some techniques are deplorable, we can't let that color the article. If we insert criticism of a method, it HAS to be backed up by a citation.
  • Section titles are too long
  • General organization
  • Sentence structure and prose flow
  • Citation style (we need inline citations to fit with the rest of the horse articles, and there are none at the moment).
Along the same lines, any uncited material has to be cited.

There is a lot of info here already, which is great, we just have to spiff it up a bit! :-D

  • Pictures
Maybe we could get some pictures of horses in training, and also of training tools? (e.g. bits, spurs, whips, etc.)

Tanyia 22:29, 28 August 2006 (UTC)


I've just made a big overhaul of one section. In the "Secure cooperation or force submission?" section, I redid the first paragraph, changed a bit of the wording of the second, and removed the third (for now). The third was not sourced, and since it was commentary on the methods of training and on the books of trainers, I've taken it out until we can source it. However, I'm going to copy the original text below so it is preserved :-)

Original text:

Starting at least as early as the Greek equestrian Xenophon, people have had the knowledge that would let them conclude that the idea of horse breaking is a bad one, or at least that the term is extremely inappropriate to describe what the best trainers actually do. Nevertheless, violence is still sometimes visited upon horses in pursuit of the goal of breaking their spirits to make them tractable equine servants.
Horses are large and extremely powerful animals. They owe no automatic deference to human beings, and before some ground rules have been established a colt may nip a human being in the same spirit of testing for dominance as he will nip a pasture-mate. A horse may also contend with a human for dominance in the pasture, and in so doing may charge at any human beings entering the pasture with the intent of driving them into submission. Horses work out their own dominance order among themselves, and they must learn to be civil both among themselves and with human beings. It is easier for humans to deal with a young horse that has been civilized by older horses (who will retaliate in kind if the youngster bites or kicks), but in any case the horse must learn that the cost of an attempted bite or kick is prompt and measured retaliation. That generally means a cuff on the muzzle for an attempted bite, and a swat with a switch of some kind for an attempted kick.
Some owners of horses believe that it is necessary to drive a horse into submission so that it has no spirit of its own with which to oppose the will of its rider. In the past, trainers have risen to prominence through use and advocacy of this method, but in the past 150 years or so there have been no well-received books that have advocated this method. The authors of the past who have risen to public notice through forceful domination of horses, the use of cruel bits and other intentionally painful devices of control, etc., are discussed below.

I'm not sure it's necessary to say that the forceful authors are discussed below--just discuss them under a secion like "Advocates of Force." Plus, we should say who believes the devices are cruel, etc., instead of just saying they are.Tanyia 23:10, 28 August 2006 (UTC)

By the way, I just wanted to clarify that I think we should add back in some of the info in the third paragraph, just under a different section and with citations and perhaps some specific examples. Tanyia 23:14, 28 August 2006 (UTC)
It's all to the good. Your ideas on cleanup are on the right track. The more NPOV the language, the fewer debates (save amongst the zealots) I am going to review some of my hardcopy books at home re: historic trainers. POM did a lot of work on this piece and we don't want to trash it up, but like all wikipedia articles, perfection is that elusive goal towards which we all strive, eh? Montanabw 23:23, 28 August 2006 (UTC)
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