Couple different accounts online.
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https://groups.google.com/forum/#!topic/rec.equestrian/r9HCs5-ljw8Pony Boy was known as Kevin Morrell before he discovered
his great great great great grandmother was Cherokee. In 1993 he applied for a Cherokee council card.Previously he played professional jazz (he attended the Berkeley College of Music). He was also an excellent artist, specializing in drawing animals. In 1993 his plans were to get a major in zoology and a minor in cinematology and then to have a career making documentary films.
He discovered his remote Indian heritage while reading an old book written by a cousin which traced family lines.
I really don't know much more than this, which was taken from a recent posting on the Morgan List.
Laura Behning
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http://articles.mcall.com/1998-02-10/news/3186903_1_native-american-carbon-county-american-indianKevin Anthony Morrell officially became GaWaNi Pony Boy Morrell in a Carbon County courtroom Monday.
Known by schoolchildren throughout the area for his storytelling ability and dramatic Indian costumes, Morrell, of Penn Forest Township, told Judge Richard Webb he wanted to change his name for professional reasons.
"I've used the name for five years," he said on the witness stand. "It's my pen name" and performance name, he said.
Outside court, the pony-tailed 32-year-old said he'd been called Pony his whole life.
Pony Boy has performed in schools, festivals and public facilities from Quakertown to Easton to Carbon County, throwing tomahawks, shooting arrows, showing his horse and lecturing on the legends and lifestyle of the Native American.
Pony says he grew up on a Cherokee reservation in North Carolina and his Indian heritage can be traced through his mother's line. But his ancestral roots never arose as the motivation during testimony.
"This isn't a big change for me," he said while waiting in the hall outside the courtroom before his petition was heard. "It's just for the court" and to "get my ducks in a row."
He would not talk about his lineage.
Nor would his father, Tony Morrell, owner of Tony's Place, a steak and sandwich shop on Route 903 in Jim Thorpe.
"You'll have to talk to him," the father said. "He's running his business. I'm running mine."
His father said he will still call his son Kevin.
The judge asked Pony how he got the name.
"GaWaNi is the Cherokee translation of Kevin," he said. "Pony Boy was given to me by an elder."
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http://www.horseforum.com/horse-trainers/native-american-horsemanship-116544/Allison Finch Super Moderator
What Ponyboy does is decent training but it has absolutely nothing to do with any Native American heritage. He learned it from present day trainers, but puts some stereotyped "mystical" Native American spin on it. It bugs me when people trade on their heritage simply as a way to sell their ideas.
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http://fhotd64476.yuku.com/reply/1988757/Nick-Peronace-is-a-Charlatan#.WFGIWlMrJ0wjasmine
He's your basic Natural Horsemanship Guru using the "Native American Ways" as a marketing twist.
The marketing "Native" aspect.
His name was Kevin Anthony Morell until he had it changed in 1998. He's of Italian and "can trace his Cherokee heritage through his mother's line" but claims to use Lakota horsemanship and the Lakota language. He's from Pennsylvania (where his dad's Italian restaurant is and where he had to go to legally change his name) and says he also grew on a Cherokee reservation in North Carolina. He sells pretty pictures of himself and horses all dressed up in misappropriated and misused mixed up bits and pieces of various Native regalia. He has appropriated "Native American" culture to mean ANYTHING Native and uses significantly spiritual symbols or symbols that need to be "earned" as marketing techniques. As far as I know he studied marketing in college and is good at it. People who have seen him in person say he is VERY into his "role-playing" of Native-Shamanic-Guru and gets lots of middle aged white women fawning all over him.
And the actual training bits.
Most of his "method" is a mix of Linda Tellington-Jones with round-penning. I've never seen him in person but the general opinion of folks who have is that he has little to no sense of timing or ability to read a horse. The reviews I found were older so perhaps he has improved. Other reviews say he wasn't bad and wasn't teaching anything wrong per se but was just your average Natural Horsemanship person and they wouldn't pay money to go back to a clinic with him.
He uses a cross-under bitless "gentle and Native" bridle (similar to the Dr. Cook but an earlier model) basically the same as the "Spirit Bridle" you can buy. However he sells and markets his own super special version under his own brand (similar to the Parellis et al).
Oh and he apparently founded an online equine university where you too can earn your Bachelor's in Horsemanship. And he's the editor and president of Women and Horse's Magazine. He sells bridles, saddles, clothing, DVDs, and CDs, and probably leadlines and buckets all unders his name.
Not to mention you can spend several 1000 and get a Pony Boy Certified Horse (is that like a pre-owned certified car?)
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http://www.chronofhorse.com/forum/archive/index.php/t-244327.htmlMagicRoseFarm
Feb. 11, 2010, 10:54 PM
Didn't I read on this board that he was from New Jersey? Lots o' Native Americans in that state for sure.
He is not Native,, I heard he is Jewish.. and yes he is from NJ..
...who was it that said marketing is everything....
He sat on his throne across the aisle from my friends at Equine Affaire Mass. one year, while the women swooned. It presented many hours of amusement... some that lasted years...
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http://sacredhorse.livejournal.com/5294.htmlsaigh_allaidh8/26/08 05:48 am (UTC)
Morrell (his legal name, according to records of his donations to Bush's campaign in 2004, is now GaWaNi Morrell, he was originally Kevin) did get registered as a Cherokee, but was never raised in the culture and, supposedly, he only had contact through joining a drumming group in the Boston area. He was a Berklee School of Music student and then got a BA in animal behavior. There is some indication he never was around horses much until he decided to make a career of them. It is implied that he got his card for marketing purposes...I suppose that comes out better from those who were reservation raised than from me, but I'm just passing it along.
One of the most, um, interesting, things I've seen him do is in a book for kids that he has out he notes that hand prints on a horse are indicative of a warrior's kills. And there he sits in many photos on a horse with hand prints all over him. As far as I can tell he's never served in the military (I may be wrong, but...) so....
