In our modern age of mass communication and the pursuit of profit, there is always someone trying to sell us something...sometimes just snake oil.....
Monty Roberts….is he horse whisperer or snake oil salesman?
There’s a video on youtube.com showing Monty Roberts in a round pen with a horse, doing his famous “join up” technique. It seems pretty benign at first, if you are not familiar with the gestures of a horse or if you believe what Mr. Roberts says the horse is really saying.
In fact, the more you really study the language of horses, the more you come to understand that what is taking place in the pen is yet another way of “breaking” horses, of making them give up. It has nothing to do with partnership or friendship with a horse.
He talks about the horse usually fleeing for about a quarter of a mile to escape a predator. This is the grain of truth. What he fails to tell you is that the horse NEVER runs in a circle!!! That would be incredibly stupid. Horses flee in straight lines. Mr. Roberts is chasing the horse while denying the possibility of flight.
When the horse drops his head and begins to lick and chew, Mr. Roberts says the horse is negotiating a contract with the human in the center of the pen. And you might believe this if you go by what Monty says. But, he either does not know what is really happening, or he is simply lying. In fact, the horse is in an extremely stressful situation. It is being driven away, chased by a predator, with no possibility of flight or escape. Dropping the head and licking and chewing are attempts to alleviate stress.
At the moment the horse does this, Monty quits chasing, and the horse turns to look at him. This, he claims, is the beginning of “join-up”. In fact, the horse naturally stops running when the pursuit has stopped. Continuing to run would be a waste of much needed energy that it might need again.
Finally, Monty Roberts freely admits to training horses for the race track, where they are run mercilessly before their bodies can do so without injury, where they suffer shattered legs, torn mouths from heavy hands on pieces of iron, psychological neglect, and death at the hands of humanity in its greedy pursuit of profit.
Monty Roberts has also been exposed by family, and sources close to him who claim his stories of what he has done are simply not true. This, combined with his tireless work of providing horse victims for the sport of racing should turn people away from his salesmanship.
Watch this video, but keep in mind what the horse is really saying, not what Mr. Roberts claims he is saying….
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vEJT9vwqwvY
