Parelli Natural Horsemanship - Criticism

Criticism

There has been criticism against the Parellis by the mainstream equestrian world. This is partly due to his dramatic performances and demonstrations with some of his own horses, his marketing programs to sell his personalized products, the general commercialization of his technique, and the cost of his programs. Other criticisms focus on Parelli's disparaging remarks made against most mainstream equestrian training methods, equestrian sports and events. In addition to this the training methods are marketed towards inexperienced horse people who are simply unsuited to training a horse without direct assistance.

Parelli supporters speculate that this criticism is partly due to the boldness of his demonstrations with some of his own horses, and possibly in part to the fact that he charges a premium price for his materials.

By marketing of horsemanship information that, according to critics of Parelli's tactics, is widely available and has been passed down for generations and considered to be common sense by those knowledgeable of the horse, many competitors to Parelli consider his methods to be inappropriately described as exclusive to the Parelli system, particularly when renamed by Parelli. Occasionally Parelli credits his mentors.

Finally, because some training techniques result in horses that do not respond to traditional horse-handling commands, when the horse is sold it may require either retraining of the horse or the new owner may need to learn (for a price) Parelli methods. Other horses, who have been marketed and sold as being trained using the Parelli method, have turned out to have training flaws and behavior problems with cause the animal to become dangerous towards handlers and are in need of retraining. The program, in fact, encourages sellers to sell their horses only to other Parelli users. This, among other things, has led to criticism that Parelli is creating a cult.