This is the next video I rented from Horseflix.
I found it OK. Not too much that was surprising. I knew he was a fan of the picadero so I thought there might be something of use in the video regarding straightness. (The authors of Straightening the Crooked Horse advocate for the use of the picadero, a square training pen that is 11 meters across.) But the video is more about using body language to communicate with the horse. All of that is cool just not what I was hoping for.
Part of the video is from a clinic and that could have been interesting if there was more to it. It was just too brief, and there was a lot of cutting from bit to bit without really seeing a lot. Sure made me wish I could go to a clinic though and perhaps that is its really objective?
A lot of the video was him working his magic with various troubled horses. And quite a lot of that is in slow motion. It makes for a beautiful production (and who doesn’t like watching horses in slo-mo 🙂 ) but sometimes I would have preferred to see it all happen in real time.
Still I did enjoy watching him work with horses and see what he does and how he does it. I don’t really subscribe to his version of what he thinks is happening when he does ‘x’ and ‘y’. For example, when he stands ‘like this’ (behind the horse) he is being ‘like’ the stallion. Other times he is being ‘like’ the lead mare. He says that horses understand him because of this explanation. Personally I don’t buy that part but he obviously is very effective with his body — however he describes it — and worth emulating for that reason alone. He is calm, clear, and specific and that always works. 😉