Even if you aren’t already, no doubt sooner or later you’ll soon be wondering what’s all this “natural horsemanship” stuff?

Just what do these people think they are doing acting like horses?  What the heck is a carrot stick?  What makes people pay $140 for a single videotape course on the topic or $16 for a 5-foot Savvy String?

Pat Parelli from Pagosa Springs, Colo., is one of these natural horsemen, horse whisperers, resistance free trainers, or whatever you want to call them. Like John Lyons, Ray Hunt, Tom Dorrance, Richard Shrake, Dennis Reis, Monty Roberts, Mark Rashid, Buck Brannaman, Clinton Anderson,  etc. — Parelli works with the horse’s natural instincts and communication to attain cooperation.

Parelli stands out among these horsemen because he has developed a multi-level, well-thought-out, easy-to-follow, video home-study course.

This course has dozens of graduates who are phenomenal horsemen. He also has partnerships with some of the top names in both the English and Western horse world — among them Oympic eventers Karen and David O’Connor.

The Parelli Approach

Parelli believes horsemanship instruction is far behind other fields. For example, skiing instructors get together and standardize basic instruction. Riding instructors do not.  Consequently, most horsemen — even top-level…