The concept he has is good and makes sense and of course it works. However, my horse is in a 50 acres pasture with about 25 horses. I have tried his method and it doesn't work. I beleive it may be because my horse's attention is easily disrupted by all the other horses having a different agenda and she soon looses interest and will go off with the herd. I would like to see Monty do this in a situation such as this. Sure if my horse was in that small area with only 3 horses, she would walk right up to me, too--without having to go through the 5 steps. But with the bigger herd, I find it much harder join up when she has 20 other horses she can choose from. Any suggestons?

I have the same situation with less horses!

I tried to apply the lesson yesterday. The paddock was huge and held a 15 yr old rideable gelding and a 21 year old rideable gelding, and a three-year old completely untouched colt. It took much patience but eventually I was able to touch the 15yr old. However he was ready to move away at the slightest hint of my trying to secure him. (I tried to go so slow - honest!) Then what complicated it was the colt started biting the 21 year old who in turn retaliated by kicking him and I began to feel unsafe being so close to the three of them while there were hooves flying. I hated giving up but for my safety I decided to seperate the geldings from the colt first. We had to do this by opening a gate into another pasture. (I don't think the 21 yr old was enjoying the colt much anyway). I'd like to understand more what was going on with this horse behaviour? The colt's biting wasn't happening at the beginning of my catching session - he was quite interested in me but never came within touching distance. Neither did the 21 year old.

Hi K.D.,
Have these horses been handfed to catch them, I mean before you came into play?
I can imagine them feeling envy towards eachother when someone comes in and the other gets a treat.
Did you send the horses away before becoming passive?
Yesterday I watched a You-Tube entry by Dr.Robert Miller, the one who imprints foals. He was working with a mule that was hard to catch on a big pasture. He used similar techniques as Monty does, becoming a "lion" when the mule moved away, and passive when he looked at him.
I might be wrong, but from your writing above I miss the sendig away part. This is essential also to avoid being among biting and kicking horses. As soon as you send them away they become a "herd" and forget about differences( like foodtreats).
Miriam

Hi everybody, I put different tecniques in practice for different situations. The most interesting thing I noticed is that the herd, no matter if 10 or 30 horses, understand very quickly that here is a conversation between two individuals going on and absolutely doesn't care about me and the horse I try to comunicate with. This is when I have to send away a horse in the pasture because it turns away from me instead of coming up to me or stand still if I approach it carfully. I say "go away a lot!" if it escapes and start the Join-Up prosess. The first time I did that I was worried how it can work if I must sent the horse through his herd because he would look for help and shelter in the herd. It works. The others just don't bother and let us have our conversation. you just walk through the herd sending your horse away. They don't escape or break away as long as you move constantly and consentrate or better focus on your horse - mostly. I also have had the situation that the horse sent away gets help from his buddy who kind of blocks him away from me. In this case I start to comunicate with that helper who will come to me and I would stay with him and work just like in the lessons here on the uni to approach the other horse. The most difficult problem happend just recently when - yes miriam just as you said, hand fet horses saw me coming and the lead mare starts immediatly to chase all of them away because she thinks to get some food. So I would firstly have her to come to me and show her that there is no food and then I can approach the others. Colts bite, mine does it still and it is in fact difficult to work with him in the pasture with one of his group members present who will be with us in a second and bother biting, nibbling etc. I must send this one away and really mean it then come back to my colt and go on working with him. If you repeat that determined enough and often and immediately it will work and the disturber or the disturberS leave you and the horse you are working with alone. VioBerlin

Thank you Miriam and VioBerlin for your helpful comments. Yes the two geldings had been handfed treats by someone else. I'm not sure about the colt, I don't think so. I suspected the geldings were looking for the treats and found me with none. I did the square-up eye on eye sending away movement when the one I was focusing on looked away, and I went passive when he looked back at me. But I didn't do a very aggressive sending away as in making them run, as the pasture was huge and I didn't want to go hiking! lol Perhaps I should have done it once at the beginning, to make the communication clearer? I like the comment about sending away the colt when he's making it difficult for me to converse - I'll remember that in the future. They were very close together though, and it's possible if I had sent him away firmly the others would have gone too. But as I keep practising I will get more experience and find out. Many thanks! :)

Starting around when I was eight(forty plus years ago)spending summer with Grandma in the Yorkshire
dales and I would,as always,pretend to be a cowboy,and although I was only on my own legs I would "round up and drive on" the young cattle in the field next door to the cottage,a herd of about fifteen or so.They would scatter when I ran into them and I could separate one animal by mimicking a cowboy,and when I was totally still they would come back and crowd around pushing and shoving to see what I was, some bolder ones coming so close that I could very slowly touch the whirl of hair on their foreheads as they were blowing and boggling and sticking their tongues up alternate nostrils .. and when Grandma called me in for supper and I'd turn and move away..they all followed.. Join up!