"We have lost so many of our old horsemen – the old-fashioned 'nagsmen' of the past, who understood so much about horses and who passed on their knowlegde by word of mouth. In many livery yards today, someone who has been involved with horses for perhaps only five years, may be considered to be experienced, and that person may be giving advice to the new owners on the yard," laments Anne Wilson in the introduction to her book, Top Horse Training Methods Explored (David & Charles 2004).
She goes on to paint a typical picture that is as applicable in South Africa than in any other part of the world – people who are bitten by the "horse bug" buy their own horses and are suddenly faced with the tremendous responsibility of managing them, without knowing the first thing about it.
To compound the problem, she points out, it is not that easy to get sound advice out there, given the many divergent schools of thought going around these days.
Why is it, she asks, that despite the fact that the classical principles of horsemanship are tried and tested, we find people continuously straying from these principles? On the one side we see extremely harsh methods being applied, while on the other there is the growing natural horsemanship movement. Many of the latter, while claiming to be new discoveries, are in fact old techniques (employed by classical training masters through the ages), that have been revamped and called by different names.
The gap between the traditionalists and the disciples of the natural horsemanship movement, seems to be widening by the day, based, it seems to me, on a good measure of mis-information on both sides. I want to conclude this piece by quoting general Alexis-Francois L'Hotte from his Questions Équestres, as translated by Hilda Nelson:
"No method, no matter how logical and well-presented a method is, none is infallible. In order to achieve the desired effect, every equestrian activity must include a special ingredient which no method is capable of imparting, namely perfect timing and good measure, that is equestrian tact. In this connection, one can say: 'The value of the means depends upon the worth of the man'."
