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Of course everybody has an opinion.   You have the camp that swears by them, that they teach the horse to be soft and responsive and then you have the camp that says they are cruel and harsh with the knots digging into the sensitive nerves of the horses head.

Who is right?   It is, I think, subjective any tool used harshly is wrong.

I use them but I know my horses would respond just as well on an ordinary head collar.

Now there is an invention that is brilliant.   It allows the horse to drift away from you and helps prevent the horse walking all over you.   If the horse spooks or otherwise misbehaves, you are so much safer at the end of a 12 ft rope.

Try leading two horses with traditional lead ropes and then try with 12 ft ropes and you will be converted! You no longer need elastic arms!  Just so much easier.

A very clever way of calling the stick in your hand.   The idea being that the stick and string act as an extension of your arm.  Humans are tall vertically, horses are long horizontally.

Never to be used in anger.

However a stick and flag work just as well and can be very effective with some horses.

One of the most interesting things about natural horsemanship is the idea of playing with the horse.    It is often not appreciated in the traditional horse world that horses have a strong play drive.   Once they feel comfortable and secure, the next thing they like to do is play.

This can often result in so called ‘naughty’ or ‘mischievous’ horses when you actually have a bored horses.

Give the horse something to think about other than circles, bending in or out, flexing, jumping, having to OBEY at all times.   My frightfully smart ex racehorse just loves standing on a pedestal for all the world like a circus horse.   He will go over the pipe above one hoof at a time waiting for me to signal him to proceed.   He has to think about it!

My horses watch me eagerly to see what imaginative challenge I can come up with next.  Push a ball, uncover a mint at a cone, to a reverse weave through a pattern of poles.