Monty Roberts calls that quality “willingness,” and he argues that to destroy it by making the horse work out of fear is both senseless and unforgivable.
Horse trainers will say that the horse is a wonderful teacher, that horses never lie, that even the malingerers are telling a truth. You might think such trainers mean something quite mystical, and perhaps they do. But the handler must show perseverance and trust to get back from the horse anything like willingness or generosity.
What better place, then, for the horse to teach these virtues, than in prisons? Over the past nine years, more than four thousand wild horses have been gentled in Wild Horse Inmate Programs in four American states (California, Colorado and Wyoming; New Mexico’s has ended.) The Bureau of Land Management culls wild-horse herds before putting individual horses up for adoption, and sometimes the job of training them falls to convicts — most of whom have never seen a horse, except on television.
This pairing of horses and convicts offers practical skills that the prisoner might use when he is free, along with lessons in humanity that might just keep him free.
Tom Chenoweth, a horse trainer with more than thirty years of experience, oversees an inmate program in Susanville, California. Prisoners, he says, have no choice but to go slow with a wild horse whose first experience of a human — being dragged into the prison yard on the end of a rope — has been brutally imprinted on his brain.
“Among inmates there is no kind word spoken,” Chenoweth told me, but those manners won’t work with wild horses. “You cannot bully a horse or make him do anything he doesn’t want to do. A wild horse doesn’t even want to be patted. He has to be taught that it’s pleasurable. You have to honestly and openly communicate with the horse.” It would be ludicrous, he said, to suggest that contact with horses transforms men who may lack morals or ethics. What is true is that patience and effort are rewarded.
It may take weeks, even months before the horse lets a human close enough for grooming, haltering, bridling and saddling. The injuries that sometimes occur offer lessons in respect and the patience required of prisoners is extraordinary — a single incident of lost temper can undo weeks of hard work. But at the end of that long and delicate process is a fine horse. And, perhaps, a finer human.
Today, the grand old man of horse gentling is Tom Dorrance. Tom’s brother Bill, now in his mid-nineties, is also a great horseman and was long a mentor to Monty Roberts, especially when Monty was a young man. No one had any time then — this was the 1940s — for Monty’s ideas about understanding horses. Bill Dorrance did, and so the world of horses owes a great deal to the Dorrance family.
Tom Dorrance, now in his late eighties, began riding a cutting horse and moving cattle on his father’s ranch in Oregon when he was only five years old. He was the second youngest of eight children, and sometimes he and his brothers would ride young horses for neighbors who would later ask how the horse went. “Well, Tom’s riding him,” Bill might reply. If a little ol’ kid could ride him, the thinking went, the horse was probably alright.
“Tom was easy with the horses,” Bill once wrote, “and they all worked for him. He wanted to get along with them. As time went on Tom figured out how to get a relaxed feel with horses … That relaxed feel really felt good to Tom and the horse.” It was in Tom’s nature to live peaceably with all creatures — human and animal. A clue to his character may lie in the book Tom later recommended to riders: A Kinship With All Life.
Tom was a small man — five feet six inches and for the first thirty years of his life he never weighed more than 130 pounds. “I couldn’t manhandle a horse,” he says. “I was often alone and far from home. If he got away, I’d have to walk.” So Tom Dorrance, on his own and still very young, tried a different approach. It involved winning the horse’s trust and seeking to understand what the horse meant when he whinnied or lowered his head or nudged Tom with his head. Like Monty Roberts, he spent hours watching horses in the wild and in the paddock. Without ever reading Xenophon (he quit school before finishing grade 8), Tom came around to Xenophon’s way of thinking.
Tom Dorrance thought he would try to see the world through the horse’s eyes. Some cowboys today call him “the horse’s lawyer” or “the patron saint of horses.”
Eventually, Dorrance wrote True Unity: Willing Communication Between Horse and Human. It’s about “reading” a horse and respecting the horse as an individual. One of Tom’s students describes in that book what he learned from the old horsemaster. The man admitted to a foul temper and using it on his horses; Tom turned his life around. “He probably made me a better individual from understanding horses,” the man said. “He taught me to see what I look at … in everything — horses, cattle, people.”
Along the way, Dorrance has taught a great many other students, who continue to pass on the art of gentling. One of them is Ray Hunt, a craggy-faced man in his seventies who still goes on the road demonstrating how to school a green horse. In similar clinics at a six-thousand-acre ranch, the Dead Horse, near Santa Fe, New Mexico, he does in a matter of hours what bronc-busters took a week to do or sometimes failed utterly to accomplish. Hunt also wrote a book, Think Harmony With Horses, and he dedicated it to the old master Tom Dorrance. “The slower you do it,” Hunt writes, “the quicker you’ll find it.”
What distinguishes “natural horsemanship” from the old way is not just the gentleness of one and the violence of the other. It’s pace. Monty Roberts has a good line that echoes Hunt’s: “Act like you’ve only got fifteen minutes and it’ll take you all day. Act like you’ve got all day, and it’ll only take you fifteen minutes.” Dennis Reis, another gentler, says, “You’ve got to stop thinking in people time and start thinking in horse time.”
Today, it seems there is no time, but many smart and skilled horse people are saying that to train a horse well you must take time. The horse, in effect, asks you to slow down. And that message is refreshing and welcome news for all who love horses.
Tom Dorrance urges riders and trainers never to let frustration take hold. Walk away from the horse, cool off, then come back. It is a lesson won from a life with horses, and many cowboys know it.
While I was riding in Wyoming, Bruce, a young wrangler, got a truck stuck — well and truly mired — in a mountain creek. As we rode into camp at day’s end Bruce approached Skip, our guide and his boss, and uttered the hope that Skip had had a really good day, because it was Bruce’s unpleasant duty to show him evidence of his own really bad day. Bruce led him over to the truck, which Skip then freed, ingeniously, by using blocks of wood as levers and by nudging it from behind with another truck when pulling failed. Skip’s calm admonition to the wrangler later on was that moving too quickly had compounded matters: “You shoulda just sat down for ten minutes. Had a cup of coffee and thought things out.” What works with horses works with horse-powered vehicles.
Ray Hunt also knows about taking your time. He teaches a horse to back up, for example, by a subtle shift in weight to the rear and rewarding even the tiniest effort on the horse’s part to respond. It’s not about yanking or fighting the horse; it’s about rider and horse becoming a single unit. And that takes time.
Marvin E. Roberts’s advice to cure the “barn-sour” horse (one who never wants to leave the barn) was to hit him hard. Hunt’s advice for the same problem is very different and actually quite simple. It’s one of his mantras: “Make the wrong things difficult and the right things easy.” Make hanging around the barn problematic for the horse, simply by keeping his feet moving. Do not let him park, and when he makes even a small move away from the barn, reward him.
4.4 Ray Hunt, horse gentler: it takes time for horse and rider to become a single unit. (photo credit 4.4)
The centaur of Greek mythology has always been the symbol of the perfect bond between horse and rider, and that is what Ray Hunt aims for. Which makes Xenophon of ancient Greece and these old-guy gentlers of today brothers of a sort.
It is hard to say how many hor
se trainers are moving in the direction of the gentlers. Some show jumpers still “rap” their horses’ knees in training sessions to make them leap fences. The “wild horse roundup,” in which teams of three men strive to saddle, bridle and ride completely terrorized wild horses, is still a feature of many rodeos.
But my sense, from talking to dozens of horse trainers, is that the motion — not just in horse circles, but in society in general — is toward a more benevolent attitude to the animals in our care, coupled with a growing sense of fascination with their inner lives.
During the brief span of time in which humans and horses have interacted, the response on the part of the human has always been either utilitarian (How can I exploit this animal?) or egomaniacal (Don’t I look grand on this fine gray horse?). Few humans have ever wondered what animals were thinking or feeling, or even granted the possibility of animal thought or emotions. Only in recent decades have doctors ceased believing that newborn infants neither feel nor recall pain and thus have no need for anesthesia during invasive procedures. And if we have dismissed babies as sentient beings, then doubly have we dismissed animals.
4.5 The wild horse roundup, still a cruel feature of many modern rodeos. (photo credit 4.5)
For much of human history, a strict hierarchy put God at the top, humankind below, and animals near the bottom. Man, says the Book of Genesis, would have “dominion over … every creeping creature that moveth upon the earth.” Most western cultures gave little thought to whether the animals they ate also remembered, felt, feared or sorrowed.
Many of us no longer think that way. The rising tide of vegetarianism, especially among young people, suggests a startling new awareness of animal consciousness. In academic circles, many thinkers — among them the anthropologist Elizabeth Atwood Lawrence and the entomologist Edmund O. Wilson, the only two-time winner of the Pulitzer Prize — have advanced a philosophy they call “biophilia.” It comes from the Greek words bio (meaning “life”) and phil (meaning “loving”). Humans, they argue, have an innate tendency, however repressed, to focus on other life forms.
Wilson and Lawrence further argue that as we come to understand other organisms — how horses interact in a pasture, the various tasks of a line of ants in the jungle, the mood of your dog walking ahead of you at dawn — we value them, and ourselves, more. Controlling nature may yet yield to observing nature.
Monty Roberts, in The Man Who Listens to Horses, describes a fellow horse trainer named Greg Ward. Horses from the Ward ranch in California have won twelve world championships in cow horse competition and millions of dollars in the show ring. These horses are clearly of the highest quality. What is astonishing, at least to trainers of the old school, is how Ward eases young horses into their working lives: for the first twenty days that a rider is on the horse’s back, the horse calls all the shots. If the horse wants to graze, trot, even roll, the wish is granted. There is no chance for resentments or neuroses to form. The method is rooted in affection for the horse, but clearly, Ward also believes this way is more efficient than the old way.
Roberts calls it “a new beginning in the relationship between man and horse.”
Horse trainers may never agree on the philosophy of teaching skills to a horse, but on this they might agree: schooling a horse is about paying attention to particulars. Find the key to that one horse.
About 340 B.C., a young Macedonian prince named Alexander was looking on as his father, King Philip, was considering whether to purchase a huge black stallion. No one could even mount him, such a fury was this horse, and his own grooms stayed well clear of him. The price being asked for the horse was high, so clearly the owner thought him a superior animal.
The king was angry that such an impossible creature had been presented to the royal family, and he ordered the horse taken away. But amid all the prancing and pawing of the great black horse, the twelve-year-old prince had noticed something. “What a horse they are losing,” he said with some sadness, while regretting aloud the handlers’ lack of skill.
The king, like many a parent, said as much as “So you think you can do better?” The prince was certain he could. He offered to pay the full price of the seemingly intractable horse if he was unable to tame him. Historians suggest that the price being asked was thirteen talents, or more than $10,000 in modern currency — a lot of money, even for a prince. The pride on the line was incalculable.
Alexander approached the horse, took him by the bridle and simply turned him to the sun. This was the key, for the black horse had come to fear his own shadow. Alexander spoke softly to him, stroked him, then mounted him. They took off in a gallop, which alarmed the king, but soon they were back. The unruly horse had met his rider.
The king wept with joy. At that moment he realized with certainty that his son was destined for greatness. “Macedonia,” he said, “is too small for thee.” The king was right on that score: Alexander the Great would conquer much of the known world.
No one else ever rode the horse. Neither Alexander nor the horse would have acquiesced in any case. Plutarch reports that “In Uxia, once, Alexander lost him, and issued an edict that he would kill every man in the country unless he was brought back — as he promptly was.”
Alexander called his war horse, black with a white star, Bucephalus, or Ox-Head. An artist once drew a portrait of Alexander and Bucephalus. The royal rider turned up his nose at it, but the royal horse neighed a greeting to his likeness. Rather bravely, the painter suggested that “Your majesty’s horse is a better judge of a painting than your majesty.” Other kings might have called for the man’s head, but apparently the painter kept his.
Bucephalus would kneel before his master to be mounted, and into battle they would go. After many campaigns the horse died at the age of thirty, an unusual life span for a horse in those days. During the final battle in India, horse and general waded into the fray, and the horse took spears in his neck and flank but still managed to turn and bring the king to safety before dying.
Alexander was overcome with grief, and later named a city after Bucephalus. “He was as dear to his master,” wrote one historian, “as Alexander was terrible to the barbarians.” Some historians suggest that the ancients typically saw horses as weapons in war, took no particular pleasure in riding and felt no real affection for their mounts. If so, Bucephalus was clearly an exception. All this because a young boy, a gentler before his time, listened to the horse.
CHAPTER 5
THE HORSE IN BATTLE
After God, we owed the victory to the horses.
RECORDS OF THE CONQUISTADORS
Four things greater than all things are —
Women and Horses and Power and War.
RUDYARD KIPLING
THE PAINTING IS called Scotland Forever! The Charge of the Scots Greys at Waterloo, 1881, by Lady Elizabeth Butler (1846–1933), and it captures in a fierce, exaggerated way the tumult, menace and pure glory often attached to the notion of war.
The six-foot-wide oil on canvas is filled by a line of fur-hatted hussars brandishing sabers and riding charging white horses. The silent, crushing wave of cavalry, the demented look in the horses’ eyes, those flying manes, all coalesce. The painting bids you pause, but the longer you stare the greater the desire to step back or to duck its line of energy.
5.1 Charge of the Scots Greys at Waterloo, 1881: Glorious art, sobering reality. (photo credit 5.1)
Other paintings, of Napoleon, say, depict the emperor on a muscled and taut gray with black mane, the reins dropped confidently over the saddle. Napoleon is using his looking glass to monitor the battlefield on the distant plain below and is handing off, with his left hand, a map to an underling. Another famous painting, by Jacques Louis David (1748–1825), Bonaparte Crossing the Alps, 1800, has the mighty gray pawing the air, the emperor caped and invincible looking, one finger pointing the way to victory. So impeccably groomed is the horse, so gloved and elegant the emperor, that both could be going to church, not to war.
&
nbsp; But read the literature on the horse in war and a different picture emerges. The Battle of Waterloo involved thirty thousand horses in a veritable meat grinder. The paintings lie: horses seldom looked glorious before battle, and certainly not after.
One photograph in Charles Trench’s The History of Horsemanship sticks in my mind: a disconsolate soldier atop a mangy, crusted, woebegone horse en route to the Crimean War. The horse looks small, almost ponylike, and sad. Trench quotes the wife of one officer who watched the troopers’ return and who remarked on what “a piteous sight it was — men on foot driving and goading the wretched, wretched horses … a cruel parade of death.”
A British officer in the Crimean War, Lord Cardigan, ordered the Charge of the Light Brigade on October 25, 1854. He liked to move forward at a gallop. This habit alone killed or disabled almost half the horses, who were grossly underfed prior to that suicidal engagement at Balaclava. Though plenty of food was stored six miles away, Cardigan would not allow his mighty steeds to be used as lowly pack horses (of which there were none). So he let them starve. They died after gnawing leather straps, ropes and one another’s tails to stumps.
The battles themselves were hideous. Here is a scene from the Charge of the Light Brigade as told by the Marquess of Anglesey, a British historian: “The old grey mare of Trooper John Lee of the 17th, who was killed, kept alongside its neighbour for some distance, all the while ‘treading on and tearing out her entrails as she galloped, till at length she dropped with a strange shriek.’ ” Sergeant Talbot of the same regiment “had his head clean carried off by a round shot, yet for about thirty yards further the headless body kept the saddle, the lance at the charge, firmly gripped under the right arm.”
Wild About Horses Page 11