Mark Rashid book recommendation?

Cortrasna

Cortrasna

Grumpy old nag
Aug 5, 2009
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I don't want to hog KPNut's very interesting thread on the clinic she attended. What she described had a strong resonance with me and some of my own thoughts and methods - I am interested enough to want to read some more from this trainer. Can any of you who might have read some of his many books that I can find on Amazon suggest a good one to start with? :)
 
I'd go for Whole Heart, Whole Horse personally. It's the most practically useful imo.

He has moved on a lot from his earlier books (Considering the Horse & A Good Horse is Never a Bad Colour).

I also like Horsemanship Through Life.

Life Lessons from a Ranch Horse is probably a bit 'Out There' and is more a philosophy of living than a book on horsemanship.
 
"Horses never lie" is the only Mark Rashid that I've ever read. A thoroughly enjoyable book that quickly took up all my time until I'd finished it:)
 
If you want his latest thinking I would buy the most recently published one that is about horses and isn't specifically about aikido! All his books that I have read have been good.
 
Definitely his third book. Rashid, Horses Never Lie; The Heart of Passive Leadership.
I may have been a bit thick Cortrasna, for I had his second book first and then read the first without cottoning on to how they might actually teach me to ride. Nine months later I watched him teach and it all made sense.
His stories offering solutions to individual horse owners less knowledgeable than himself whom he observes getting it terribly wrong can begin to grate.
However his third book describes his own work with horses and how he learned as a boy - so he puts himself in the role of the person learning from the old man. And that suited me fine.
 
Any of his books are good. I do have a later published one in that he refers back to the older one and gives you his thinking now as well as then.
In some cases he says he feels the same.
I have yet to read Considering the Horse but have all read all the others.
 
Did any of you who have read his books actually take anything from them and implement it with any success with your own horses?
 
His books aren't a how to guide. There are no techniques. But I learnt a huge amount from them. They basically taught me to question my assumptions and work things out rather than blindly follow any particular techniques. Also taught me much more about how horses think, feel, learn and behave. Whole Heart Whole Horse is the nearest to an instruction manual as chapters are called things like for example: 'Speed Direction Destination' with a detailed explanation of why those 3 things are so important to a horse, why so many riders don't offer adequate quidance to a horse in some or all of those areas so the horse takes over etc. It has changed my riding and handling completely.
 
Might be interesting to know what we do as we ride which is Rashid influenced? The changes in our riding rather than just reading.
Here are four of mine, all fairly recent.
When you ask a horse to go forward, it needs to know speed, direction and Destination . My wanting to know destination (how far we are to trot or canter) seems to surprise R I s. Yet in a dressage test the destination is always clear.

The height of the head influences the focus of the horse's eyes. Learn to control the height of the head and you can divert his attention from distant threats.

You can have communication through a long soft rein. Enough for your fingers to sense and correct any wandering of attention on the part of the horse. Stopped my mare snacking when we hacked, like magic.

Fear of canter in the school is reasonable if the rider lacks brakes and steering.

Perhaps others can add.
 
Eta I also taught Thyme to transition up and down and do lateral work using only energy and intent which was lovely. I had such a great connection with her. I hope to do the same with Cally.
 
Teaching self carriage through teaching to give softly to the bit in halt and backing up first.
 
They are not how to do books, but reading them did make me rethink what I do in some areas.
I did implement something I read as an idea to try. It was a case of letting the cob decide if her original decision-coming off the rail in the school was worth the effort, or if actually staying on it was a better choice! It didnt take long for her rethink.

Doesn't everyone ride with body, leg and hand? So energy and intent? I add voice into this as my voice comes before anything else, its a half halt if needs be. But Mark does explain somewhere in one of the books about looking where you want to be going.
My lass fills in my holes, so if I lunge her in the field and "drop her" she will decide the session is done and lean towards the gate.
 
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I have a word document somewhere Cortrasna explaining the things I picked up at the first clinic I watched. I had been riding two years. I went home and did it all on Maisie. Things that had defeated me like which foot was where were suddenly plain. Mark says that a horse doesn't know anything except how to be a horse. He set up a slightly anthropomorphic conversation between the rider and the horse. After watching Rashid, I compared hacking Maisie to going out with Peter Rabbit to Mr McGreggors garden.
 
newforest said:
Doesn't everyone ride with body, leg and hand? So energy and intent?
Click to expand...

Yes but I dropped the leg and hand completely and rode pretty much only by thinking about what I wanted. Of course I must have been translating thoughts into body movements somehow but that all happened outside conscious awareness. All I consciously did was picture the feel of what I wanted.
 
I have a couple of his older books, I think Considering the Horse & A Good Horse is Never a Bad Colour, I would be happy to post the to you as I'm a once I've read it, it just sits on the shelf gathering dust kind of a person :D
 
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I have read a few as well. - as above they are not manuals or guidance books, more philosophical and story based - so you can read on a level as an interesting story, or you can read deeper and reflect on how it translates to you.

I personally found them far more effective at changing my perspective and approach simply because Iwas thinking through the application, the appropriateness and what I aimed to achieve - rather than picking up a book, opening up a page and copying the how to do xyz. I was more understanding and learning than copying.
 
I may have translated my thoughts to her to today as she did start to turn towards the field while I was still fiddling.
But, in reality although I do use my voice as my first aid if I didnt back that up with something else I could end anywhere, probably in the direction of green yum yums.
If I didnt get a bit more involved with hacking she would do the same route and one of those would be into someone's garden to eat yum yums.

Eta. Just checked what I have read and I do have Considerting the Horse. I have four so I will look out for the 5th, there are five?

If anyone wants to read any by Monty Roberts, let me know. I found the books gave me more of an insight than any demo or DVD. Regardless of your thoughts on Join Up, its so much more than a round pen.
 
This really a post for New Forrest.
I don't think it helpful to take KPs account of her experience at her first Rashid clinic with her own horse , and apply it out of context, or regard it as the whole story. Rashid teaches in a school and most often on a 20 m circle close to his spectators. He produces suggestions which he believes might help a particular pair, rider and horse. And he moves step by step in a progression that is likely to give a desired result .
Mark told me that what I had watched was one of his most advanced riders. No one told me that at the time. But when I went home and told my RI and she told me to try it, I replicated the steps I had seen him teach. After the lesson horse transitioned on a thought , my RI told me that some students found easy even if like me they were novice riders and some of her advanced riders didn't get at all.
I find it hard to remember where you are in training your cob, but I have watched Mark help people back horses and also Michael Peace. In both cases clarity is everything and one can see the cues. Similarly out hacking , I expect any horse I hack to go forward easily on minimal cues because I am a lazy old woman. I use Mark's method described in the other thread to get the walk I want but I don't ride out on the open blithely trusting my horse will be guided only by my thoughts.
The language of what one wants is conveyed to the horse through ones seat. By the time I first heard Mark I had had hours of lunge lessons teaching me how to sit and feel the horse. I had ridden bareback . And I was taught all this for the sake of my own safety. Not for the sake of the horse. Mark teaches a rider first to breathe and sit relaxed so the horse can move freely forward. The next step is to understand and count the beat of each gait including halt. Once he has shown a student how to do that, he will suggest that they may find they can change gait just by thinking a change in the rhythm.
My experience of RS horses is that after a few hacks, they pick up the characteristic changes in our position as we prepare to transition and offer what we are looking for almost without our needing to teach them. The downside is that Maisie sometimes took off when I hadnt asked. Horses equally may transition down. But I would rather a horse read my thoughts wrong than it didn't read them at all.
I hope this is helpful .
 
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