The Horse Tamer Series: Episode 2 — Candace & Harley

Do you know why cowboys like dachshunds?  This is only one of the many fascinating facts Pat Parelli will unveil in Episode 2 of The Horse Tamer Series. 

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-king equestrian series.  

Episode 2 introduces us to Candace and Harley.  A long time friend of Pat’s and a highly talented  professional show jumper, Candace King reaches out for help with a client’s anxious horse who refuses to jump. Throughout this episode, Pat works with Harley to gain trust, respect, try, and understanding so that he can ultimately face jumps with confidence. 

Once again, Pat takes a challenge and views it through his unique lens of puzzle solving equine ethology.  Starting with the truth that horses aren’t afraid of people, they’re afraid of predatory behavior, Pat begins to dissect what’s underneath Harley’s fear of jumping and prove that humans can be trusted to not push him beyond his thresholds. 

Throughout the episode, Pat reveals the power of long body logic and how playing with a horse through this filter in the different zones of the horse, enables us to talk to horses in a way that makes sense to them – this is crossing the prey animal/predator barrier.  Our goal is to bring out the curiosity in a horse and utilize that modality to enable a horse to learn rather than using more pressure or force.  This happens by first building confidence in all of the zones and then creating a language for leadership. 

Pat starts on the ground using both a long rope and two different lengths of herding sticks, one is a 4 foot carrot stick (to remind us to be extreme middle-of-the-roadists) and the other is a 12 foot collapsible telescoping pole to be able to communicate from further away to more zones on the horse.  

Building rapport with himself and his tools, Pat lays the foundation for respect, which in Parelli terms means having an appropriate response to pressure.  Pat challenges the traditional method of forcing a horse in a circle over jumps which is usually done by chasing him around with a lunging whip and instead gives Harley the opportunity to think through the puzzle of moving forward with confidence both in a circle and through, over and between obstacles.  

One of the foundational truths of applying the Parelli philosophy is learning to Retreat and Reapproach with horses.  This builds both confidence and curiosity which are vital to true communication.  We combine this with another Parelli principle – Nose, Neck, maybe the Feet – and Pat demonstrates how we can make progress literally one step at a time without overphasing our horses. 

In classic Pat style, he shares another witty truth, “If he acts like an a.., let him eat grass.”  This is to counteract the negative cortisol and replace it with positive chemicals which are naturally produced while a horse grazes.  The Parelli Program uses nature and nature’s set up to help us build our bonding and communication – this is natural horsemanship at its finest. 

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+!