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The Horse training task force of WikiProject Equine is about methods of training horses, and all the related aspects of the relationship between people and horses.

Members

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Sign with 3 or 4 tildes. Suggest members in italics.

Topics

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Pre-modern

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Modern

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19th Century

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20th Century

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Hunter/Jumper/Dressage "English" disciplines

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Spanish Riding School

Western and "Natural Horsemanship"

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Assess WP:Notability (and not just a good web site) and create articles.

Theorists

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(as opposed to horse trainers)

Horse Whisperer notes

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The Horse Whisperer (1998 movie)

www.montyroberts.com

The Horse Whisperer (Evans book)

www.horsewhisperer.com

Smithsonian Magazine article http://www.smithsonianmag.si.edu/smithsonian/issues98/may98/horse_whisperer.html

  • Buck Brannaman was the basis for the character Tom Booker, the central figure in Nicholas Evans' best-selling novel The Horse Whisperer.
    • Nevertheless, the method used in the breakthrough treatment of the traumatized horse is straight out of John Rarey's work. Will study of Brannaman's writings reveal an acknowledged debt?
  • Brannaman's work with horses, as it turns out, also served to rescue him from a troubled past. Brannaman himself was an abused child: the compassion and empathy he has brought to training horses has helped him deal with a history of conflict and violence

http://www.rarey.com/sites/jsrarey/ John Solomon Rarey (1827 - 1866): The Original Horse Whisperer

  • Word of his gift spread and in 1858 he was summoned to Windsor Castle in England to calm a horse of Queen Victoria

I see a pattern here:

  1. Childhood abuse: Roberts says he was abused, Smithsonian says Brannaman was abused-
    • None of the others were abused.
  1. Queen of England: Rarey impressed the Queen around 1870; so did Roberts 100 years later
  2. world travel and fame: Powell, Rarey & Roberts
  3. horse whisperer: Sullivan was identified as a "horse whisperer" because he stood close to the horses he was working with. Powell mentions the term. Rarey has been called the "Original Hores Whisperer," which obviously is not true; Evans novel is about a fictional horse whisperer; video about Roberts: Real Horse Whisperer

Another pattern I'm seeing from cruising the horse trainer websites is that each one puffs themselves up, emphasizing their own contributions and discoveries while giving only the barest mention to others. They tend to give the impression that only they know anything or have any skill. Like a marketing brochure: come to us, we can do it all, and our competitors are all fools or villains. Perhaps horse training is a competitive business. Uncle Ed 04:16, 19 October 2005 (UTC)[reply]

One of the characteristics that I find interesting in Roberts is that he is a showman. I don't mean that in a negative way. If you are going to operate in certain arenas (even in academia) you need to be able to promote yourself. I suspect that if he had no truly wild horse on hand to use for a demonstration then he would do the demonstration anyway, just to show people how he negotiates with horses.
If you've been abused you are likely to have a sharper appreciation of the abuse done to others. One of the things that Monty Roberts mentions is that he was upset when he learned that some people were fainting as a result of watching him in the round pen. He thought it must have been a strongly negative feeling that was aroused by seeing his demonstrations, but when he spoke to these people they reported that they had been abused as children and had been profoundly moved in a positive way by seeing how they might have been treated if only someone had known the right way to deal with them.
I wouldn't be surprised if Roberts deliberately emulated Rarey's visit to the Queen. And, on the other hand, being royalty is an easy path to learning to like horses (you've got plenty of them in your own back yard), and somebody who has oversight responsibilities over the royal horses probably has a natural tendency to have a look at whatever seems new and potentially interesting. Also, royal horses are probably worth a lot of money, and the royal family probably can afford to cast the net wide for someone to help with a troubled horse and not shy away from trans-Atlantic passage for someone who will at least be an amusing colonial bumpkin if not the real salvation of the horse. (Cynical, I know...)
Sullivan was the first one to be called a horse whisperer. He was an inspiration to Powell, and Powell was an older (?) colleague of Rarey. Then there was the novel based on Rarey and using his trademark technique, and people were probably looking around to find "real live horse whisperers." If you are a showman, and especially one who has been influenced by Rarey (consciously, unconsciously, I'm not sure yet), it's a natural. Somebody started calling Roberts a horse whisperer at some point in his career. Actually, probably before the movie, but who knows. I wonder what happened to Brannaman's career. Was he still alive after the book and movie? If so, the novel and movie must have been a boost for him too.
Sullivan had his main career in England, and maybe the royal family got its initial interest in this kind of thing from him. Then Powell was all over the place, too. Not England, however. Rarey followed, taking this tradition of training back to England. If you were picturing yourself as the 20th century inheritor of this tradition then where would you like to be invited?
I think many of these men may have been showmen, and by that I mean people who have a real talent for working with horses, but also people who are adept at promoting themselves. Powell had quite a career, moving from place to place, training horses but also demonstrating his abilities. It isn't so clear to me that Rarey was a great showman. My impression is that he was more modest and expressed himself (outside of retraining traumatized horses) by writing. Roberts is what I would call a showman. He certainly is not shy about promoting himself. The thing is that if you are able to train horses that other people cannot handle then you may have a local following or a word-of-mouth following, but getting horses to you or you to the horses is a pretty expensive undertaking and one's sphere of operation may be fairly close to home unless one does a lot of promotion. Any maybe if you are not good at promoting yourself you farm and train horses and occasionally handle abused animals and that's it. But you wouldn't have a website. And if you have a website it probably has (unless you are John Solomon Rarey) the object of making yourself some more money. So you would be unlikely to mention other people unless you are presenting yourself as the disciple of a master trainer.

P0M 06:00, 19 October 2005 (UTC)[reply]

A lot of this make sense (and I'll move it to talk later). I'm thinking of making some tables to arrange all this insight. Uncle Ed 12:37, 19 October 2005 (UTC)[reply]
Name years "whispering" promotional
Rarey 1850-1880 one the first to be called a Horse Whisperer modest despite meeting Queen
Sullivan 19th century
Roberts 1950-2005 Real Horse Whisperer quite a showman, met Queen

Greatly in need of cleaning up

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(removed, has been merged with horse behavior and redirect added

Other

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Literature and movies

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These promote love of horses:

  • Black Beauty, 1877 novel led to a vast outpouring of concern for animal welfare.
  • National Velvet, 1935 novel (film version starred a young Liz Taylor)
  • My Friend Flicka, 1940s trilogy of novels (each turned into film) that critiques harsh training methods.
  • The Black Stallion, a long series of Walter Farley novels (film version of 1979 has small Mickey Rooney part)
  • King of the Wind by Marguerite Henry concerns a mute slave boy's devotion to an Arab stallion as they encounter various vicissitudes of fortune together. Her other titles also promote the love of horses.
  • Phar Lap, based on the life of the Australian racing star
  • Seabiscuit, based on the Laura Hillenbrand bio of Seabiscuit
  • Miracle of the White Stallions, 1960's film based on the rescue of the Piber Stud
  • Florian, 1950s (?) dramatization of the rescue of the Lipizzaner stallions from danger when the Nazis took over in Austria. It contained some very good footage of dressage exercises. It is now out of print and not available in tape or DVD reproductions.
  • My Dancing White Horses a post WW2 movie about the Lippizan's at the end of WWII and how General Patton arranged for a huge number of horses to be saved- otherwise the German's would have surrendered the horses to the Russians, who were planning to slaughter them for food." Also seems to be unavailable for purchase.
  • Jill's Gymkhana and the rest of the 'Jill' series by Ruby Ferguson; a very popular British pony series for young adults that stresses gentle, responsible care and training.

Horse Training article as "home"?

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I recently did a MAJOR rewrite of the horse training article with the intent to create a general catchall summary piece covering the basic princibles of training horses used by all disciplines; western, english, whatever. (i.e., for example, all horses eventually need to be halter-broke, this article says it has to happen, gives some guidelines as to when, but doesn't go into great detail on methology or technique). My intent is to not let that particular article get too long or advocate any one school, but rather to be a very (VERY) general beginner article with lots of wiki links to articles that go into more detail.

From there people can add "see also" wiki links for the different schools of thought and we can also look at any needs to organize the horse training category a bit better. Montanabw 20:04, 6 October 2006 (UTC)[reply]

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