The Horse Tamer Series Blog – Episode 7: Mary & Milo

“Horses that pull back are usually horses that buck, and all horses are born skeptics, cowards, claustrophobics, and panic-aholics by nature in varying degrees.”  Pat Parelli 

In September of 2024, Pat Parelli released his expertise to an even broader audience with the launch of The Horse Tamer, a series now streaming on Tubi, Amazon Prime, and Apple TV+. In this captivating 8-episode season, Parelli works one-on-one with horse owners facing significant behavioral challenges, offering insights and techniques that highlight his four-decade commitment to building love, language, and leadership between horse and rider.

Each episode in The Horse Tamer introduces a unique partnership in need of Pat’s guidance.  Over the next few weeks we’ll be introducing you to our cast and crew, the special horses, owners and trainers who make up the beloved characters in this one-of-a-kind equestrian series.  

Episode 7, featuring Mary and Milo, quickly became one of the fan favorites with our team here at Parelli.  Milo’s owner Mary is grappling with his sudden outbursts and unpredictable behavior.  As Pat observes almost immediately, a horse’s #1 instinct is to be perceptive to people, places, changes and things.  Milo is a pro at displaying perceptive prey animal behavior, but now it’s time to teach him to think and act like a partner.  

It’s beautifully simple to see Pat start out by “just” taking Milo for a walk, on a long line of course.  Most people don’t realize that we’ve got more leverage the further away we get from a horse – this is long body logic.  As we gain distance, not only do we have good leverage for communication with a horse’s long body, but we’re also able to talk to and influence our horse’s different zones.  Natural Horsemanship is first and foremost playing with a horse’s nature, and this approach takes a horse’s natural physiology into consideration.  

As you’ll see in this episode, another application to working with a horse's nature is simply switching sides.  Sounds easy enough, right?  However, for horses with bilateral vision, the picture they see in one eye is completely different than in the opposite eye, and that change alone is enough for Milo to panic in his perception of the environment and the obstacles in the world around him.  Pat switches sides often and very intentionally so that Milo is exposed to the environment and to pressure equally.  

Pat’s goal is to allow Milo to gain confidence so that his curiosity will kick in.  After that, he begins looking for deceleration as well as acceleration.  And here’s a key point:  we have to teach horses to decelerate.  This isn’t common knowledge in the horse world.  But once this becomes the focus, you’ll quickly see Milo choosing to reconnect with Pat.  This is a completely different concept than chasing a horse around in a circle to try to tire him out.  We want our horse to have coming back to us on their minds. 

Next, it’s time to test and see how Milo responds (or reacts) under pressure.  It’s about applying pressure appropriately so that you gain an appropriate response to pressure from your horse.  And best of all, anyone can learn this.  It’s knowing and using phases of perfect pressure in the proper position, and this is what the Parelli Program teaches!

As you observe Pat playing, you’ll notice him introducing Milo to forms of pressure that mean lots of things other than go forward – this is interrupting Milo’s pattern of just going.  It’s about teaching a horse to yield in all zones, all directions, under a human’s leadership.  This creates partnership behavior in horses. Hurry up and get curious, hurry up and relax.  

Pat proceeds to play with a bareback pad to help Milo understand the cinch without the added weight and pressure of the saddle.  We call this prior and proper preparation in the proper position.  As Pat mentions, just wearing the cinch altered the way Milo was breathing which meant his nervous system and adrenaline and cortisol were all spiking.  If we learn to observe these slight changes and then take the time to develop confidence and understanding, any challenge can be overcome.  Most of the time, the horse is missing a strong foundation, and again, building solid foundations in horses and humans is what Parelli is all about. 

Pat’s goal was to find a way to cause Milo to move without being bothered – with the bareback pad, with the carrot stick and bag simulating a rider, with the big green ball, with the saddle, and then with Pat as a rider.  This is following the blueprint of the Parelli Program, taking the time it takes, and as you’ll see by the end of the episode, all the small steps landed Pat and Milo in a perfect partnership place. 

So share with your family and friends, whether they are horse owners, horse lovers or just looking for a good TV program.  This is clean, kid and animal friendly, edu-tainment at its finest.  Gather your two legged and four legged family close and settle in for some great Horse TV, now streaming live for free on Tubi and and also available on Amazon Prime and Apple TV+!