TV Trainers. Rethinking Them.

Freakin' early this morning, I got up to catch the latest news and flipped on RFD-TV. There was a guy named Ken McNabb starting a colt. I gotta tell ya, now THIS is how a colt should be started!!

I don't know how McNabb has slipped under my radar but, overall, I've been opposed to sooo many of these TV trainers that I got to where I dismissed them without really taking a lookie-loo.

For way too long, a lot of 'trainers' got to where they were sort of pandering to the masses and wanting to teach 'tricks' instead of actual training. ...And making lots of money off of unsuspecting types who don't really have a way of seeing the real thing and wanna be a horse trainer. (I have a personal story of a guy who was a pharmacist for decades who wanted to 'train' and went to a Big Name TV Trainers clinic [from now on, it's BNTT for short] and hung out his shingle as a trainer..then posted on horse sites about what he had learned. Needless to say, we tangled quite a bit.)

Recently, I re-looked at CA and now his candle is out from under the bushel basket and I'm impressed with him. He's real and not just 'cause he hangs with the big boys (Carol Rose, Shawn Flarida, etc) but he is a horseman.

Not like another TV trainer who(m) I happen to know someone who grew up with him and this poplular BNTT didn't even ride until he got to be an adult but could always talk a good line. He sure does. I've seen him in person and marveled at how people were glued to his every word. I wished I could talk like that in real life but I didn't get inherit that gene...dammit.

Chris Cox, to me, is more the cowboy's trainer but I've watched him take a very spoiled black Arabian that would buck even while being saddled and get him straightened out in one go. He did such a masterful job of keeping that uber-brat's head up and pushing him forward that it was beautiful to watch. However, I doubt that the owner could have kept that horse going like that 'cause the level that Cox was riding was way up there and not down on most everyone's level. I don't know if that horse went home with his owner or if there were some deal with Cox that the horse goes home with him but it sure was a nice horse that could have been fabulous.

So, as time goes on and I see things such as this, I'll post them. I want today's horsepeople to see the real deal when it comes to horsemanship and not someone only teaching tricks. In my perfect world, I want real horsemen/women produced.

Now, go love on your horse!! :-)