Judith Kopf
Licensed 2-Star Parelli Professional
Judith has been a licensed Parelli Professional since 2017 and was working full time as a trainer in Germany before relocating to Portugal. She spent more than 9 months in total riding with and learning from Pat Parelli directly. She continously works on her own education by learning from Pat Parelli and other masterful horsemen like Berni Zambail who is a 6-Star Parelli Professional and Master Horse Development specialist. Learning and sharing as much as she can about horse behaviour and the connection between horses and humans is her passion and her purpose. Before finding Parelli Natural Horsemanship Judith competed successfully in various western riding disciplines up to the second highest level in Germany.
Here is Judith's explanation to why she want's to invest her time, energy and heart into preparing Lusitanos and other portuguese horses before they are exported to other european countries:
​A solid foundation from catching, leading, grooming, trimming, trailer loading, saddling and bridling to riding inside and outside of arenas in a relaxed way is unfortunately not reality for many Iberian horses that are sold to other countries.
I have had pretty much two types of Iberian horses come to me personally for lessons and training in the past 5 years.
(This is of course not representative for all exported Iberian horses as my usual client base are people that are looking for a solution when they are having problems with their horses).
1.
Horses that were still ferrel and not truly tame. First they were ripped out of their herd and a free and wild life out on huge fields. If they were stallions they were quickly castrated and then they were forced on a truck for 2000+ km / 3-6 days without any proper preparation or trailer loading practice. After the stress of the transport they arrived to a foreign climate, barn, herd and a human that they have sometimes never met. Some horses take it well but you can imagine the way these horses think and feel about humans when these stressfull events were their first experiences with them.
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2.
Horses that have made human experiences before but unfortunately not in a good way. They might have been broken with a serreta within a few days just to be advertised as "ridden". Many are super tense and stressed when it comes to riding, some offer the Spanish Walk or the Piaffe as a solution for pretty much everything. When you put them on a long rope they start running in mindless circles around you and if you let go of the reins they start running...
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Luckily there are also many happy Lusitanos with no trauma that were bred, raised and trained in a friendly way and we need more of them! But from my personal experience as a Natural Horsemanship trainer I do know that there are many humans that had a nightmare instead of their dream horse step off the transport lorry.
So I am hoping do my part in supporting the Parelli mission of making the world a better place for horses and the humans who love them by making sure more horses receive a solid foundation so that they can be great partners for their humans.
