What is Parelli Natural Horsemanship really?

In 1981, Pat Parelli founded his training program, which he called "Parelli Natural Horsemanship". His wife Linda Parelli joined him in 1993 and has played a key role in shaping the concept over the past few years. The focus of the Parelli program is not primarily on training horses; As Pat says, "Parelli isn't a horse training program, it's a people training program"!

Contrary to much misconception, Parelli is not it's own riding style. It is a basic training for humans and horses, which is based on mutual communication, on respect and trust between humans and horse and which considers the varying needs of different horse personalities (Horsenality ®). It does not matter if you ride English or Western, if you just want to spend your free time with your horse or if you have ambitions for sport. It's all about understanding the natural behaviour of the horse and using that knowledge in everyday life to prevent problems before they can arise. Or of course to fix them if they're already there.

Do you know what natural horsemanship really means?

Horse-Man-Ship has a very simple meaning: the horse and man do something together or go somewhere together. You can roughly divide the term into three categories:

• Chemical horsmanship
• Mechanical horsemanship
• Natural horsemanship

Actually, one would not think that chemical or mechanical horsemanship play a big role in our everyday life with horses, or that we would even call it by those names. But if you look closely, you can quickly find examples. Who has not experienced those horses who were sedated to clip, or to see the dentist, or even in extreme circumstances, to shoe? These are everyday situations for chemical horsemanship. There are also simple examples of mechanical horsemanship: all types of ancillary reins fall into this category, for example.

The Parelli program is dedicated to the Natural Horsemanship category. The term "natural" stands for natural handling of the horse. This means that man is dealing with the essence of horse and is willing to see things from the point of view of a flight animal, so as to better respond to the natural behaviours of the horse and prevent problems before they can arise.

Step by step to success - on the ground as well as in the saddle!

Parelli Natural Horsemanship is based on four learning areas - the "Savvys"

Step by step to success - on the ground as well as in the saddle!