Monty's OK.... I think there are a lot of valuable lessons from watching his round pen work. I was a little disappointed with some of his corrective lessons, because I only saw them performed on horses that were already pretty darned obedient, but he has a quiet confidence that I think goes a long way with horses.
I've worked around hundreds of thoroughbred racehorses, 2 year olds, intact stallions, high on grain , vitamins, and only get out of their stalls for an hour a day to train on the track. Amazingly, the majority are docile and kind.
Of course there are some that are mean. I can only think of 3 , (out of all the ones I saw) ) that would fit the description of mean.(" Well one of the 3 might actually be called evil-he didn't just bite, he'd try to savage. He'd try to slam you into the wall. He'd not only rear up, he'd rear up and aim at you and try to come down on your head, or rear up and spin at the same time trying to drop you. The trainer had him gelded. It didn't make one bit of differece. He was just as mean after-LOL." ) But all in all alot of the bad behavior is really just the horse feeling good. That doesn't mean put up with it though.
I saw grooms come in to work with the machismo attitude. They'd do the "beat the crap out of em" routine. More often than not , all that happened (especially with the stallions) is that a war would ensue where the horse would go after the groom every chance he got, and the groom would take the worst of it- bruises, bites, kicks, stepped on toes. (to be fair, I had all these things too, -bruises, bites ,kicks and stepped on toes, but it was once in a while. With the macho guys, it happened to them just about everyday.
The main problem was that the groom was afraid, and the horse knew it. As it was explained to me by an old timer at the track "Horses can smell fear on you. They can hear you breathing. They can hear your heart beating in your chest (they have sense of smell and hearing similar to a dog's). You have to stay calm around them. But never, for a second, lose respect for the fact that they can kill you.
I just believe that you can't use all stick and no carrot with horses. You have to use common sense.