It's All About What's In Your Heart and How You Use It"

horse not complying with the clinician's requests. The owner politely declined to have her horse's face ripped off so withdrew her horse from the clinic. The 3rd horse in the lineup was brought into the round pen. The clinician set him up to react to an extreme situation to see how he would react. He reacted as expected ... he spooked and tried to bolt. The clinician "corrected" him (ripping off his face). He was then put into the long lines and taken out of the round pen to work. He was "corrected" numbers of times as he would balk and react but the clinician's sharp and loud "Haw!" with slaps with lines and cracks with the whip combined with his face being "ripped off" would "make" him go forward. She got the results she was looking for from him in short order. Then, she asked me if I wanted her to work with my filly to get her into the lines. Because our last venture into the round pen was a scary one, I hesitated. I also hesitated because I was witnessing a bit more "aggressive" handling than that with which my filly was accustomed. I knew my filly would not respond favorably to the harsher, aggressive handling. But, in my moment's hesitation, my mouth opened and said, "OK". !! What was THAT!?!? Well, said and done. I went and brought my filly into the round pen and left her with the clinician. Within the first five minutes my filly reared up more times than I had ever seen her do so in 1 and 1/2 years here. She never kicked or struck out at the clinician in aggression; she reared in fear. She was not responding to the clinician's cues as she "should" be doing. The clinician repeatedly "ripped her face off" by snapping the line heavily at the mare which resulted in the heavy "natural" brass snap connected to the line and halter (one well known to Natural Horsemanship advocates) to pound the filly's chin. Where else is the filly supposed to go? She's panicked, she's got the aggressive human in front of her and the round pen panel in back of her ... she had nowhere else to move her feet except up. Horses have another peculiar hard-wiring. They HAVE to move their feet when frightened. This is part of their survival instinct. To try to force a

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