Stuck for words on what I have just read about the bridling incident, cant they see that it is just plain wrong?!!
My daughter gave me a book for my birthday titled Horses Never lie by Mark rashid. This is following natural horsemanship methods in the art of passive leadership and I was amazed when I read this book. In my opinion it is so right, he mentions the ''other'' so called natural horsemanship methods ie parelli although does not actually mention it by name but basically points out in his book why it is so wrong.
If you look at your horses as a herd, which I then did as a result of reading this you have a dominant male in each herd. This in our case is Harvey a 7 yr old 14.2 who rules through aggression. He is the boss and chases the others off piles of hay etc. He is obviously the dominant male and the others are all very wary of him moving away as soon as he approaches etc. Then he suggests you look for the horse that the herd will try to follow naturally, generally a quiet one but one that the others want to be with, that they choose to spend their time with. This in our case is Kanga, he has a calm authority and although he tends to stay in the background and avoids any confrontation with Harvey at all costs he is the pony that the others resect and choose to be with. Mark Rashid then puts the question to you, do you want to be the aggressive leader as in Harvey, pushing the ponies away and making them wary of you or would you rather be the Kangas of this world. The leader that is calm and gentle , the one which the horses themselves choose to be with. look at your 'herd' and take time to think about each horses place in it. It is an eyeopener, a fantastic book and to be prooves why Parelli is so very very wrong.