14/08/2026
Perhaps the legacy of Monty Roberts and Supernanny isnāt the methods they taught, but the conversations they started.
There has been recent debate surrounding a post by Equitation Science International āde-bunkingā the Join-Up methods promoted by the late Monty Roberts.
Regardless of where you sit on the research behind his methods, itās important to celebrate the impact he had on horse training around the world.
Although the principles Monty Roberts promoted werenāt necessarily new or novel, he brought them to the world stage in a way few others had managed to do.
He encouraged people to ask:
Does it really have to be this way? Could there be a gentler way?
For many people, that was a significant shift from the harsher methods they had known before. Practices such as tying a horseās leg up to ābreak them inā were once commonly accepted within parts of the horse world.
Monty Robertās āJoin-Upā method involves driving a horse in a round pen until it comes in and follows the handler (this is a very simplified explanation). In behavioural terms it involves pressure and release - negative reinforcement.
Negative reinforcement isnāt inherently ābadā. The important questions are what the pressure is, how intense and prolonged it is, how clearly the horse can obtain release, and how that individual horse experiences it.
Equitation Science has since given us a much greater understanding of what is happening during pressure-and-release training. The intensity, timing, duration and individual horseās experience all matter. Round-pen training (like Join-Up) can be coercive, and for some horses it may contribute to significant stress (McGreevy et al., 2018).
For me, attending Monty Robertsā Equus University was an important part of my own training journey.
Did I adopt everything exactly as taught? No.
But it taught me to question pressure, release, timing and communication.
The recent ājoin-upā debate in the equestrian world had me reflecting on the evolution of parenting methods and the sensation of āSuper Nannyā, in the 2000s.
Jo Frost brought time-outs, naughty steps, reward charts and strict routines into thousands of homes. Some of those approaches have since been criticised or refined as our understanding of child development, attachment and emotional regulation has evolved.
It wasnāt long ago that corporal punishment was widely accepted as a constructive (and necessary) parenting strategy.
Super Nanny didnāt necessarily have all the answers. But like Monty Roberts she encouraged people to ask:
āMaybe there is another way.ā
So, what are our thoughts on Join-Up?
Chasing a horse in a round pen until it gives up and comes in? No.
But we do work at liberty. We discuss boundaries, we drive horses away and draw them in. Sometimes that can look like Join-Up.
Misty showed me what that looked like outside of a round pen, in wide open spaces to truly choose to walk beside me without coercion and I thank her for that everyday. A reminder that learning extends beyond the classroom.
At Balance, it isnāt about what the horse does at the end.
Itās about what the journey looked like getting there.
We deliberately didnāt build a round pen because we donāt want a horse to have nowhere to hide. We wanted a horse to be able to move away and have the opportunity to say ānoā during our interactions.
It isnāt about letting horses do whatever they want. In our view, itās about noticing their behaviour, reflecting on its function, and adapting our response.
Every horse is different. Every person is different. And what works today may need to change tomorrow as that individual, our circumstances, and our understanding change.
Perhaps we donāt need to decide which generation had it ārightā.
We can acknowledge that people before us were doing the best they could with the knowledge and resources available to them, while also recognising that we know more now than we did then.
We donāt have all the answers ā¦ perhaps none of us do. Maybe the real measure of growth isnāt in how certain we are, but in how willing we are to keep learning.ā¤ļø
