Hi all, I just wanted to let everyone know that I had my first lesson with Tony Simonetti on Monday and it was great. I have had several natural horsemanship lessons in the past, but found that usually they are better at working with horses than at teaching people. This was not at all the case with Tony. He was able to effectively help me work though some of the issues I have been having with the mare I am working with. She is very dominant and bossy but also jumpy and can be a bit spooky. For me it has been a challenge to get her to see me as a leader and take leadership from me, especially since I have the twin worries that she will either spook and run me over, or challenge my leadership and come at me. She did come at me once about a month ago in the yoyo; fast and nasty with her ears back. It was easy to shut it down and send her back, but very unnerving. Anyway, Tony showed me how to be more definite it what I am asking and to not let her use her little tricks to unnerve me and throw me off my program, and also that I can easily use the same skills to keep her off me if she spooks. Wednesday night I had a chance to work with her for the first time since our lesson. It was pretty breezy and she was spookier than I have ever seen her, but I was able to work with her and stick with my program in spite of this. She was much less challenging of my leadership, and because she could understand my directions much more clearly, she was much more willing and polite. Not perfect of course, but a real and noticeable difference. While circling game used to be an issue and she would challenge me all the time, we now have a beautiful circling game. Also she is taking direction from me on the lead, yielding away from me nicely when requested and no nasty face! What a difference. It was also very instructive to see Tony work with her, and how quickly she stopped paying attention to everything else going on and started paying attention to him. Now she is giving me more of her attention too. Most of all, the issues that we had with her challenging me for leadership and threatening to come at me have largely disappeared. I just repeat my request the way Tony showed me and she does it! With energy! This is a big change. We still have lots of work to do, but we are on our way and with a big jump start thanks to Tony’s great instruction.
Also, my friend who owns the horse was very impressed with how clearly Tony was able to explain things, why to do certain things and why it works and how it helps the horse make a change. This is high praise as she is very new to natural horsemanship, and all the concepts are new to her.
So if anyone is having similar issues, I just wanted to let you know about my experience and how much it helped me. Sometimes we just want to enjoy our time with our horses and not be constantly worried or frustrated. So if you are in this boat, I highly recommend Tony Simonetti.
Susan McCotter