my faliy is friends with a trainer in texas, was our neighbor before parents got divorced and moved out of the house. name is mark shrimp, owns the bar S and is one of the top trainers of reining horses. HE doesnt like john lyons because he is what some people on here have called a "old school trainer". he thinks you have to make the horse do what you want, then it will respect you. where as john lyons thinks you get the horse to respect you and you wont have to MAKE it do anything. thats a generalization of course, Im sure John Lyons has made horses do things but John is way more gentle, a trainer. Mark Shrimp is a trainer but hes also an old comwboy breaker. know what I mean? so that shows that everybody has very different opinions and Mark cant be completly wrong because he has some world champion reiners, and tons of national reiners. I tend to agree more with John Lyons. Be the horses friend and earn its trust and you can more easily get it to do what you want without force.
anyway, several years ago Mark hosted a clinic for Monty Roberts at the Bar S. He also made Monty leave after watching him hit a green broke yearling in the face with a manure fork. not talking a pitch fork, one of those plastic ones for cleaning out stalls. It took two of Marks stable hands (more than stable hands really) to hold him back while he told Monty to leave.
this is a guy who not only is what I consider too rough with his horses for my taste, even though I have learned a lot from him, he is also one tough SOB. Marine sniper in vietnam, 50 year old true cowboy, one of only a few americans with a black belt in aikeedo (sp?). so he probably would have killed him, he doesnt have that brain filter that makes you think about consequences unless dealing directly with horses.
for him to have been upset with that, I've lost all respect for Monty. I agree, you could learn some things from his books etc, but my personal opinion is that he didnt come up with it on his own, that hes a fake.
