Hard to say. I've done PNH the entire time I've been at the barn, which is almost six years. I get all kinds of compliments about how sweet and obedient and wonderful Royal is, but the only person who ever ties it to Parelli is my barn owner. She mostly does Clinton Anderson stuff, but has a lot of respect for the Parellis and has seen them live a couple of times. So, people think my horse is great, but I'm not sure if they credit Parelli for that.
The other two barns, not so much. I started Parelli a few months after the Confidence Shattering Fall (the one where I wanted to get off 15 minutes before being thrown off) and it caused a huge rift between my family and the owners. They were mad I wasn't training with them anymore, to the point of refusing to clean our horses' stalls or give them water.
The Crazy Control-Freak Barn, a dressage/eventing barn where we boarded for a brief six months, was even less happy about Parelli. I told the owner/trainer that I did Parelli with my horse when we visited the barn, and while she referred to it as "circus tricks", she didn't have a problem with it. However, that didn't last long after I made it clear I wasn't interested in taking lessons from or putting my horse in training with her. I had watched her teach some lessons and ride some horses, and she never hesitated to beat her horses (sometimes with two whips) or call her students stupid for the smallest mistakes. I told her I simply wasn't interested. Then the abuse started. According to her, I was a stupid, ignorant, no-nothing teenager who was ruining my idiotic nag of a horse and I was going to kill us both. After five months of near constant abuse, neither my sister nor I wanted to go to the barn unless it was 8'o clock in the evening, so we wouldn't have to deal with her. When we gave her our 30-day leaving notice, she told everyone in the barn who joined in on the harassment and tried to guilt us into staying. Then, we got into an argument when my sister and I let our horses graze on the cross-country course when no one was using it, and the owners boyfriend threatened to kill us.
We left the next day and went to the barn where we are now, although my sister has her horses in her backyard now. Interestingly, I've often wondered if my recollections are too harsh on this woman, but then I meet other people who have dealt with her and they've all said she's a nutcase. Every single one has said that she beats her horses and berates her students. So, I don't think I'm being too mean.
I suppose Crazy Control-Freak trainer doesn't think too highly of Parelli, but I'm not sure I'm too bothered by that. Her negligence also contributed to my dad shattering his wrist, major health problems in all our horses, and caused me to hate dressage for a long time. Luckily, the Parellis, Karen Rolhf and Walter Zettl have helped me like it again. Thank goodness for that.
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