Does Richard Maxwell fit into the category of 'Natural Horsemanship'

Mary Poppins

Mary Poppins

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Oct 10, 2004
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I saw the Richard Maxwell demo at Your Horse Live and was amazed.

Is Richard Maxwell what you consider to be 'Natural Horsemanship'. What does Natural Horsemanship actually mean?

I have been around horses/yards for a long time and seen many horses who just will not load. Each and everytime the pattern is always the same. People try and haul the horse on, get out whips, lunge lines etc. etc. and at the end of the day the horse still will not load. I have very rarely seen anyone go back to basics and load a horse using the pressure and release concept.

Why do people not use this approach more often? Ben can be difficult to lead sometimes. He likes to plant himself for no real reason (not that I can see anyway) and it can take me ages to lead him anywhere (in from the field, or out to the school for example). The advice on my yard has always been 'give him a smack' - but this doesn't actually work and I just don't like taking a whip to him in that way. After watching the Richard Maxwell demo and taking the advice that he gave to someone else, I have started backing him up and moving him sideways when he plants his feet. That makes him walk on easily and the problem is solved. Am I therefore using 'Natural Horsemanship' techniques?
 
Basically yes, if you want to label it that way. But dealing with a horse in a way it can understand is just good horsemanship too.

Unless they're exposed to NH an explicit understanding of pressure and release rarely seems to be taught and people have to work it out for themselves. It's fundamental to almost everything we do with horses and understanding it can give you a massive edge in your handling and relationship.
 
Making the wrong thing hard and the right thing difficult or pressure and release are all basics of it.
For me i just use and do what works at the time and i don't get caught up in whose method it is or whether its classical or western.
I just have a halter, line and get on with it. I also have a bridle, bit and get on with that as well.
 
I agree with Yann. Pressure and release is not taught enough in mainstream I don't think.

With leading Ben you may also let him hit the end of your long rope when you are leading him and keep a consistent pressure. He will probably chuck his head up and move backwards, but as long as you keep the same pressure while he is moving back and don't use any more or less pressure, he will figure out that moving away from the pressure is the right response.

Tobes used to be the king of the planting. Occasionally he will want to stay somewhere grazing and plant, but it is seconds now when he feels pressure and moves, rather than ages and backing up.
 
Richard Maxwell says of himself that he was army-trained, and then he met Monty Roberts. So his style is a synthesis of both.

I think he is very NH inclined and I think his stuff generally works well! I really like his books.
 
Totally irrelevant, but a friend used Richard Maxwell some years ago for a loading problem. She said he had a very nice bottom! Did you happen to notice whether that was still the case MP?
 
Pmsl thanks sjp just the giggle I needed! (Even if it has caused a lot of strange looks at work!!!)

As is said above - I was taught how to lead or how to bridle etc - but I was never directly taught "pressure and release" not was I taught body language... I mean its pretty obvious if a kick is coming your way, but it's the subtler warnings I never learnt. These are not "nh ideas" so to speak, they are just good horsemanship skills - however they are not "conventionally directly" taught but nh trainers explain and highlight the use a lot
 
Bodshi said:
Totally irrelevant, but a friend used Richard Maxwell some years ago for a loading problem. She said he had a very nice bottom! Did you happen to notice whether that was still the case MP?
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I can't say that I noticed either way - it certainly didn't stand out as being outstanding but I was quite low down in the seating area so didn't have the best view. I wonder if anyone who was sat higher up might have a different view?
 
Been to two demos by Maxwell. Both times I learned something Ive used. He is very enabling.
 
I cant comment on the loading incident.
Different trainers have different personal characteristics - and develop over the years. I often think that for all of us, riding and handling horses is a very personal thing, as individual as our handwriting.
Maxwell has a record of being able to help with "dangerous" horses and has in the past been injured. May be a male trainer with a military background is less inclined to consider every tiny risk?
But I do know a girl who in a single visit from Maxwell was shown how to do the (long term) training work herself.
For me, as a none too physically assertive woman, influenced by slow and pacific NH trainers, Maxwell has encouraged the assertion of a bit of authority. That is, I can pretend to be Maxwell if my horse is inattentive or plain naughty out hacking.
There is a contrast with what you often post Mary P - that your lovely horse will take care of you. That HE is calming your frayed nerves. With Maxwell, it is the rider who is entirely in charge of the horse - Our RI compares it to taking a two year old child on the roads. For us, the adult, to judge how much authority is needed at any point. When to be firm.
For a trainer asked to load a difficult horse in a demo, there is then a quandry - how long to take and how assertive to get. I have watched Mark Rashid get in conflict with his audience at a demo by putting more pressure on the horse than the audience liked to see. Upping the risks for both horse and trainer. Rashid argued that he knew the horse's history and had the owner's consent. But few of us on NR are capable of handling really angry or frightened horses in the way Maxwell does. That is what people pay him for.
What is striking about Maxwell tho, is his interest in teaching owners (mostly woman) how to do the ground work he does with two long lines. He played a massive part in my own education. It doesnt always do to be taught by people who are similar to oneself.
I learned from watching him and his DVD how to handle ropes without tripping over them. He explains slowly. Anyone who learns from Rashid, learns how to back up - as a training tool. Maxwell's DVD teaches UK riders to do that too - tho he uses more leg.
If you learn to ride as an adult in a riding school (as I did) these are elements of your equestrian education that may well not be covered. Unless you actually ask for lessons - and you might not understand that these skills were there for the asking - and within your capabilities, if it had not been for Maxwell. No tests or IH courses, no passing of Parelli levels - just get on with it, practise and learn.
 
Ruskii said:
Was this the same demo where the horse hit it's head on the roof of the trailer/lorry?
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No it wasn't - but I can see how it can easily happen both in a demo and in real life. Many horses will rear to escape being loaded and I wouldn't have thought badly of the demo if I had seen this happen - although obviously it depends on how the situation was then dealt with. The horse I saw was doing mini rears outside the trailer but as far as I could tell he was well behaved inside.
 
I need to get myself a Richard Maxwell dvd I think.

His approach is just such a stark contrast to what I have been taught and how I have witnessed people training horses. I want to learn more about it.
 
This is why demos can be such a good idea, they get you thinking and expose you to new ideas and approaches. I've not seen Richard Maxwell for a very very long time but when I did I thought he was somewhere between Parelli and IH, and at the more assertive end of the spectrum, his halter, if he's still using it is pretty severe too. I seem to remember him taking the pee out of people who cuddled and kissed their horses too :D Although he was probably making a point about people being inconsistent and confusing. I had a big light bulb moment watching him as he was asking a green horse to soften into the contact using a myler combi as a transition from the halter pressure, and I realised it was exactly the same as Heather Moffett's pelham and all about that pressure and release again :)

It's always going to happen one day but I've never yet failed to load a reluctant horse at the yard using a halter and the right techniques. I've found rearing happens if you're just going that bit too quick, slowing down and asking for a little less seems to avoid it whilst still getting a result. That said they've mostly been ugly 'emergency' loads where the owner couldn't or wouldn't practice beforehand and I did it mainly to make life easier for the horse.

There are a lot of people out there working in a similar way to Richard Maxwell, IH and Mike Peace to name but two.
 
MP I am a fan of RM and always enjoy his demo's and have learnt a lot from him but that said. loading is an issue for Chanter.

I use a mixture of training techniques both tradtional and NH I also own and use a Dually on Chanter I know the pressure release and do use it.

However, Chanter will happly go in the trailer on the way out, in fact he trots in and travels well. but in the way home it can be a different story, We can be out for a hack, comp, vet anything it does not matter. he will walk up to the trailer and turn sideways off the ramp.

I have sent him back, moved his quarters taking him back in the school for a quick join up session etc etc. He will stand on the ramp across ways he will walk 1/4 in then back out. You can't spend hours practising as at home he walks in normally and some times he will go in first time on the way back. he is the same with a lorry or trailer. There is no reason behind it. As any of you know me you know I am constistant, caring, forceful when needed and I never raise my voise or hit my horses.

The only way to get him in is to move the trailer next to a wall on the right and then he will walk right in first time or lay the lunge lines out on the floor and walk in up the middle of them.
 
Skib said:
For me, as a none too physically assertive woman, influenced by slow and pacific NH trainers, Maxwell has encouraged the assertion of a bit of authority. That is, I can pretend to be Maxwell if my horse is inattentive or plain naughty out hacking.
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I'm not sure why you see Maxwell as assertive - he says it's all about calm consistency, and that's what he does. The most assertive thing he does is to swing a rope to ask a horse to move. I also think, Yann, that when he takes the piss (and he's very funny with it) he's talking about owners who are inconsistent - who praise a horse when it's done nothing to earn it, or who give up asking before they get the response they want. I've seen it happen myself in lessons, when the horse (my horse!) does something perfectly well for the RI, then when I take over, it's "Oh, I needn't bother, it's only mum.." They're teaching us to stop being "only mum" and behave like a trainer.
 
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I've today learnt what a poll guard is for - I thought they were to stop headcollars digging in if they got headaches or had an injury there!!! :eek: oops! Can see I've never needed one!
 
Silly answer to the OP - but when I went to check I still had the Maxwell DVD, it was filed in the "Riding" DVD box - not in the NH box.
I went to see Maxwell as part of my "education" designed by folk on NR. As Yann says - it is good to watch people who arent quite the same as oneself. Maxwell also happens to be the trainer who visits yards locally so I saw him work with horses I know a couple of years ago.
Linda, you asked why I called him assertive. If you read Kelly Marks you will see there is a good deal of thought given to what the horse is thinking? Rashid and Peace the same. You cajole (train) the horse into thinking what you want it to think.
But sometimes - like on roads with traffic - there isnt time for this. Maxwell was the one who said that the horse needs to pass an MOT before hacking just like a car - you need safe brakes, steering and acceleration.
This altered my riding. Often I am given a horse to hack that I dont know. We have seen on other threads how people were somewhat stumped by the horses at Studland - their lagging behind or wanting to eat. In the old days I would have kicked them on or pulled up the head. The Maxwell technique is different. To get a horse's compliance (or its attention) you turn it sharply in each direction (yielding the haunches some people say) and then immediately back up. It is his road test for a horse.
I think of that as assertive because, instead of correcting what the horse does which is annoying, I intervene by asking the horse for a movement which does not come naturally. And after complying in this, a horse is likely to work properly and stop messing about.
Obviously if it is a horse I ride all the time - I might look at a grazing problem or get it quicker off the leg. But Maxwell is concerned with safety. To ride safely you, the rider, must be in control of the horse.
Maxwell making us think of the horse more like a car, made my riding more assertive altogether. I've been cantering first, fast and happily on a wee RS pony who's normal job is to follow the teacher. No problems - But thanks to Maxwell, I am consciously riding that canter - steering, acceleration and brakes. You dont just "hope" a car will be safe. You make sure it is.
For those of you who have ridden all your lives, this might seem quite ordinary. But that is what I mean by assertive. Taking charge.
 
Thanks for the explanation, Skib. I'm not sure that I'll call that 'assertive' - I'd just call it 'riding' :wink: But I see what you mean now.

And I've just realized, riding in the wind and the rain, that I do tend to adopt the horse's point of view( "she won't want to go that way, she'll get the rain in her face") rather than mine ("we're going over there"). Which is, in effect, handing over control to the horse. The opposite of assertive.
 
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