Natural Horsemanship

Natural horsemanship is the philosophy of working with horses by appealing to their instincts and herd mentality. It involves communication techniques derived from wild horse observation in order to build a partnership that closely resembles the relationships that exist between horses. 

Natural Horsemanship techniques use the minimum of force required to get the job done and avoids fear- and pain-based training methods.

Method

While natural and gentle methods of training have been around for millennia, dating to the advocacy of gentle methods by Xenophon in Ancient Greece, there have also been any number of techniques over the years that attempted to train a horse by breaking the horse's spirit, often forcing it to fight back and then be dominated or defeated.

Natural Horsemanship advocates point out that by removing fear an individual gains trust from the horse. By not scaring and hurting the horse, the horse learns to work with people in a partnership verses as an adversary.

Natural Horsemanship breaking techniques ensure that the horse comes out the other end of the Breaking-in process with their natural personality and no hang ups. These techniques can continue to be used throughout the horse's career and can be extremely helpful for teaching horses to float load, stand still etc and can be a useful part of the training regime for any horse in any discipline.

Some well-known trainers considered to be practitioners of natural horsemanship in the late twentieth century include: Tom and Bill Dorrance, Ray Hunt, John Lyons, Clinton Anderson, Buck Brannaman, Monty Roberts, and Pat Parelli.

Further information

Information courtesy of Wikipedia. For more information and relevant reading references.