Anger over Parelli display at Royal Festival of the Horse
A furore has broken out over Pat Parelli’s treatment of showjumper Robert Whitaker’s stallion Catwalk during a demonstration at the Royal Festival of the Horse (9-11 July).
The Parellis were trying to put a bridle on the reluctant horse using their natural horsemanship technique. But angry spectators branded their actions “abusive” after the stallion was twitched and hobbled in the two-hour session.
The demo has led to 1,150 people joining a Facebook group called “Parelli is neither ‘natural’ nor ‘horsemanship’”, damning Pat Parelli’s techniques, and there’s a 154-page debate on the H&H online forum.
Forum user Elsbells was there. “I’m as mad as a snake about it all,” she wrote and Chestnutty Mare added: “How can anyone say that the horse wasn’t distressed. Where was the dignity in all this?”
Another forum user noted: “We were unable to watch any more and had to walk out,” with another saying: “It was my first Parelli experience and it will be my last.”
There is also an online petition to urge equine welfare charities to look into the Parelli demonstration.
But Alice Bell, from the Royal Festival of the Horse, told H&H: “We immediately went to inspect the horse with the senior vet. He examined him and was completely satisfied the horse’s welfare had not been compromised.”
Never miss out on the latest happenings in the equestrian world
A spokesman for Parelli said: “We do feel that we made some mistakes and want to apologise for them.”
And Pat Parelli told H&H: “Although we at Parelli, the vet and the owners of Catwalk are all perfectly happy that the stallion is of fine health and suffered no duress, we are ready to accept that nothing we nor our community of Parelli practitioners say will change the mind of a few hundred people who are out to shout us down.”
Robert Whitaker said he felt the situation had perhaps been blown out of proportion.
This article was first published in Horse & Hound (22 July, ’10)
Stay in touch with all the news in the run-up to and throughout the major shows and events during 2026 and beyond with a Horse & Hound subscription. Subscribe today for all you need to know ahead of these major events, plus online reports on the action as it happens from our expert team of reporters and in-depth analysis in our special commemorative magazines. Have a subscription already? Set up your unlimited website access now
A graduate of Exeter University, Amy joined our news team from Redpin Publishing in 2008 as news writer. She was promoted to deputy news editor in May 2013 and became news editor in April 2015. She left Horse & Hound in March 2016 to take up an editorial position in Dubai.