Buck Brannaman is one of the most successful natural horsemanship trainers because he made the best out of his abusive childhood by using it to better understand horses and people with troubled pasts. Before Brannaman, his style of natural horsemanship training was not well known, accepted, or used. Traditional natural horsemanship is now much more readily accepted and more people are using it.
Dan “Buck” Brannaman was born in 1962 in Sheboygan, Wisconsin to Carol and Ace Brannaman. Buck and his brother Smokie had a childhood, which blended abuse, rope tricks, and horses together. When Buck Brannaman was 11 years old, his mom had a diabetic attack while having the flu and died. Ace Brannaman started drinking and would frequently keep Buck and Smokie Brannaman up at night beating them and blaming them for the death of his wife. After years of suffering under their father’s wrath and wondering if they were going to live through the day, Smokie and Buck Brannaman were placed in a foster home with Betsy and Forrest Sherley. Under their foster parents’ guidance, the brothers had a new start on life and began getting over their violent childhood.
Natural horsemanship is a method of horse training that is based on how horses treat each other and develop a pecking order. It’s about working with the horses and developing a bond with him in a way he understands. Traditional horsemanship involves ways of training horses that have been passed on for generations and generally are less about developing a bond and listening to the horse and more about getting the horse to do what you want it to do by whatever means. “Breaking a horse” (which means you are getting him used to saddle and trained to be ridden) was a term often used by traditional horse trainers as they would literally and figuratively break the horse’s spirit to make him compliant to being ridden. It involved chasing horses around in circles until they were exhausted and unable to fight, throwing them on the ground, chaining them to fences, and beating them with sticks. Buck Brannaman firmly believes in “starting horses” and getting them used to the saddle, not breaking them.
In order to succeed in training horses, Buck Brannaman believes you need to have “intuition, sensitivity, change, presence, non-aggressive stance, determination, humility, and love,” (Brannaman). Buck Brannaman believes you have to have understanding and empathy for horses that have been mistreated in the past and be able to accept new things and choose the better path. You need to provide discipline, and lead the horse up to the right path but still let the decision be finally up to the horse. Buck teaches to ask a horse kindly, but not demand or nag. You need to teach your horse in a way in which he understands. Also, you have to have a drive to do better, and a want to care for and treat a horse right. You need to make the wrong things difficult, but not impossible, and the right things easy. Additionally, you have to ask the horse lightly at first and then build up on that. Buck Brannaman says you need to be able to slow down and observe and work through the problem with the horse. According to Buck Brannaman, you have to be able to “…[not] sweat the small stuff.” And finally, you have to try to understand what and why people and horses act like they do. Horses reflect on the humans around them, if you are pushy and afraid, your horse will eventually become pushy and afraid as well. Horses are never afraid or confused around Buck Brannaman because of these traits.
“Having gone through that [abuse] as a kid gives you some empathy with a horse in a similar situation. When he feels fear for his life, you can relate,” (“A Talk With Buck Brannaman”). A big difference between discipline and ill treatment is knowing when to release the pressure or correction, when to apply it, and how much to apply it. If you are always asking without letting the horse, person, dog, etc., have time to think about it and decide whether or not to do it, he just feels pressured (and possibly scared) to DO something whether right or wrong without thinking about what he is doing (Brannaman 637). In order to get that finely tuned understanding that everyone wants, you have to ask as lightly as possible and then build up on that so next time around when you ask the horse to back up with just a twitch of the lead-rope, he will back up.
Buck has helped show many people that there are other ways to train a horse without inflicting pain or fear. One person was sent to Buck Brannaman lesssons in correctly handling horses by a judge after he killed a horse by beating it with a 2x4. After the clinic, the man was completely awestruck by the different training methods and actually broke down crying when he realized what he did to his horse. When Buck’s students see him work with a horse for the first time, many say it’s like the horse and him are dancing together (Believe 1227). In the book The Horse Whisperer written by Nicholas Evans, the main character, Tom Booker, was based off of Buck Brannaman and his horse training methods.
Buck Brannaman is considered one of the best horse trainers in the world because of his extreme understanding of horses and people and their problems. He had a rough past, but Buck Brannaman says he has since gotten over the abuse “[because] I live in the moment.” Buck Brannaman spread the idea of natural horsemanship around the world so that it is commonplace. Everyone around him is amazed at his cadence and empathy for horses and his ability to help them get over their troubles. Buck Brannaman is truly the ultimate horse whisperer.
-- Works Cited Brannaman, Buck, and William Reynolds. Believe: A Horseman's Journey. Guilford, CT: Lyon's, 2004. Print.
Brannaman, Buck, and William Reynolds. The Faraway Horses: Adventures and Wisdom of an American Horse Whisperer. New York: Lyons, 2003. Print.
I've always been a huge fan of Buck and his training methods, although I never realized that there was a documentary about him ad his work.
*Goes off to find documentary*
I've always been a huge fan of Buck and his training methods, although I never realized that there was a documentary about him ad his work.
*Goes off to find documentary*
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