Monty Roberts explains Join-Up® with Equus, the horse

this horse has been here one week yes he's been in this pen I have not been in this pen with him at all this horse is 24 months old he's Porter sangre he is thoroughbred all the way he's beautiful he's very mature for a 24 month old baby he's raised on a farm that is the client of ours that sends them here for their first rider and the first out first rider and I I have no idea what he's going to do he's healthy he about 1200 pounds or so and he's fast and he's raised under traditional horsemanship so he gets a bit of physical discipline if you will but in watching the last group that came in it seemed that he would tolerate thank you that's backwards it seemed like he would tolerate he's going to look around and wonder about you all because you're kind of funny-looking people and he's a horse so he has his eyes on the side of his head the side of his head this I cannot see not like us with our eyes on the front of our head this eye takes care of this side this side this side okay and he knows immediately that I'm a predator my eyes are in the front he knows my body he knows my pulse rate he knows it and I know his he came in here at the pulse rate about 80 to 90 I'm just going to introduce him to the center of the pen here and he'll do that and I've got people here that know all about that why do they do that every time you go to an auction sale for young horses and every time they come in the sales ring they empty their got why do they do that you know some of you have been to the races and you know this race they call a handicap what is a handicap race well it's where the racing secretary wants bedding so they say this horse will carry a hundred and twenty pounds and this horse will carry one hundred and twenty two and this one will carry one hundred and twenty eight and he tries to weight them so that they all will arrive at the finish line at the same time so the betting there will be a lot more betting on them because there's no long favorite huh that's not the kind of races that most of you watch on television I'm going to have to have the little voices like that will really catch his attention it's not the kind that you watch on television because those are the big races and they're not handicaps but the handicap races are put on for the betters and a pound on a horse will slow him up in a mile about a half a length two pounds one length 3 pounds of length and a half etc so when these horses are grazing in the middle of a big area and they happen to smell a lion coming or a tiger or a grizzly bear if they are sharp and remember that every horse is hyper-vigilant and they all have post-traumatic stress they live to be food for the Predators they only eat grass they've never killed another specie so before that lion gets there they empty their gut that was about three pounds go figure all he has to beat is one horse out of the metal and the Alaia needs the other horse so these horses are survivors of the fittest and they know what they're doing emptying the gut is the manifestation of an elevation of adrenaline because he's looking up there at all these strange faces he's never seen anything like this before he's never been in this place with the lights on before he's been in here but not with the lights on and not with an audience like this so I'm just going to take this line off of him now and slap my leg and he'll go away from me eyes on eyes shoulders square I'll just pick that line out and say go on away because they're flight animals I'm giving him a chance to express his flight tendencies so he'll lead me now so he leaves me and he's happy about that because I kind of worried him anyway and he's never met me before I've never that's the first time I've ever touched him right there but I know my business enough that I know that this horse is a horse and that means that for 50 million years he has studied his own communication system and I've discovered it eyes on eyes shoulder square fingers open he goes faster I'm going to show you the other way around and I'm going to predict for you the conversation that he'll have for me he's going on the right lead now look at the right legs or going the greater distance leading to the inside I'm going to change him and ask him to go the other way now he's leading with the two left legs leading on the inside that gives him the most chance to run fast some of you may know this some of you may not all cows run disunited left in front behind God laid him that way so they could not run the horse and we could catch up to him it's true it's true they do it anyway I don't know if God had anything to do with it but they cross lead or disunite so he's going on the left lead down to left legs I'm going to turn him around and go the other way for his psychological see he's looking at me with left eye and he's already seen me with right eye but this is the first time he's seen me with the left eye now I'm going to put him back in the original direction that he travelled watch how he'll be more relaxed because he's been here before and he'll go slower watch how he will put this ear on me and then lick and chew yeah put this ear on me try to keep the little voice down the other ear will listen to the rest of the world and he'll lower his head right down by the soil for for gestures were looking for the ear licking and chewing lowering the head and making the smaller circle which he hasn't done yet we're looking for four three we've had there's the lowering of the head it's like I need a leader deference to me he says I'm important in his life with his ear the licking and chewing manifestation of the lowering of adrenaline now he's ready to almost to do join up but he please he hasn't done his smaller circle coming off the wall he's just thinking about it now so I'm just going to send him on a little bit and let you see that I can predict what he's going to do there's the smaller circle coming off the wall a little hanging that head over and looking at me saying can I come closer to you I'm just a poor horse look at that there's the smaller circle there's the smaller circle just as plain as day now watch when I open my hand you don't have to hit a horse to get him to go faster I can open my hand and pick a speed up immediately just a cat's claw open like that and watch what happens I'll keep doing it until I get him right on up to the canter like that and then what's this now and I'll drop my hand down close my fingers bring my hand down across my body and I can pull him right down to a stop that little book was right up here and Britannica and they now say oh there is some work being done that might indicate that there is a language that there is a communication system between horses not a language communication system between horses and humans watch now as I open my fingers now if a deaf person was that adept to watching the signals the gestures that you make you would call it communication sure or not so all four gestures are in clearly and I'm ready to do join up and I tell my students to try to do join up at 12 o'clock at the top of the clock and 6 o'clock is the gate the bottom of the clock and their tendency is to drift toward the 6 at the bottom of the dial that's another thing but watch this now I've been eyes on eyes shoulder square and I'm going to go passive and see what he has to say to me shoulders on the 45 fingers closed there's the moment of joy nub perfection and I rub him as an instant consequence positive a pig this is the pig when it has been done now he's happy the pulse rate has fallen now just over 50 probably and I'm just going to walk away from him now and see where he wants to be when the professionals first saw this in the late 40s when I was showing it man I was ostracized and after I wrote a book about it and identified it after 11 World Championships I was thrown out of the Hall of Fame because I didn't respect tradition and that's okay if you have to respect tradition to the extent that you can't improve then I don't want to be in their Hall of Fame they even threw my horse out my best horse out can you believe it but I mean my life was threatened three or four times a week for a year or so after my first book came out now this horse is so happy with me that there's just no getting away from him what's get me that's a good boy now how many times does this happen what you just saw every time if we get it right if I get it right every time it happens but don't come horses do things wrong really we would blame them if they did something wrong when we they can't do anything wrong they only have two goals in life one is to survive and the other to reproduce and he's only thinking about survival but to blame the horse for anything use of whip use of tying his legs hammering on him the way they do with so many times pitches on their nose grabbing their ears and holding them for whatever they want to do to blame a horse for anything is like blaming the knight for being dark their actions have to be natural normal they can't do otherwise they can't plan against you they can't do anything against you when they walk to you it's because they want to walk to you I'm not making him do it I can turn him loose there's no demand here whatsoever and he wants to be with me and the scientists are going crazy now because it goes against a lot of what they taught for so many years we're going to get on the people carrier now and go to the house and I'm going to be with you all through dinner so I'm going to answer a lot of questions up there thank you very much okay

Channel: Monty Roberts

Views: 1,107,929

Rating: 4.8757973 out of 5

Keywords: Monty Roberts, Equus, Join-Up, natural horsemanship, training horses, horse trainer, horse whisperer, The Man Who Listens to Horses

Id: vYtTz9GtAT4

Length: 13min 53sec (833 seconds)

Published: Wed Mar 01 2017

Reddit Comments

[u/j0hnnywad]

This is fucking wild! I’m legit floored.

[u/microbicsloth]

Impressive!

[u/inmeucu]

I've never understood horses. I feel much more in tune with it at least from a mental initial approach.