Buck Brannaman Interview

By Gabriel Denison

Buck Brannaman is at the fore of the horse whisperer, or horse centered, training movement gaining attention on a global scale. A student of Ray Hunt, he was the primary inspiration for the book, “The Horse Whisperer,” and worked as consultant with Robert Redford on the movie. He is the author of two books, “Groundwork,” and “The Faraway Horses.” He recently conducted a four day clinic in Sisters, Oregon.

 

GD: Ray Hunt has been your trainer, teacher and mentor, and he has said he has a very strong mission in bringing this gentle horse technique to people and horses everywhere. Do you feel driven by this same mission?

BB: Oh, absolutely. Absolutely. It's something I've been doing long enough that if you don't have a passion for doing this, I would have quit years ago. I've been doing this for 20 years now, and I still really love what I do. It's something. I'm pretty lucky to have something that I enjoy that much.

GD: It's true…and there are still so many horses out there. Once you really appreciate a horse, you know there are so many that could be good horses if people only knew what you are teaching.

BB: ( nods solemnly)

GD: What's the greatest obstacle in your work?

BB: Well, I would say… fear. People being afraid. And a lot of it is that, you know, things have changed, a lot of people don't use the horse for a job anymore. They have to make up things for the horse to do, and since the horses don't really work for a living, like they did years ago, it's harder for people to get along with them. People are not around them as much. That fear – it's a heck of a thing.

There's lot's of horses that are afraid – we deal with that everyday. You can get a horse to work through a lot of this stuff easier than you can a human. Because there's so many things… human emotions wrapped up in this horse thing. Often people realize that what I do has very little to do with horses. They may be there in search of something they can't even verbalize; they didn't even know they were in search of.

GD: People are a lot more complicated than they were 20 - 40 years ago. Everything is a lot faster, people are expected to do more and be more, so I'd think they bring a lot more baggage to their horses.

BB: Yeah, and people don't ride as well as they did, years ago, when they had to ride more. They really don't. You'll see a person on a horse, the horse is just fine; but the person, their skills - just their physical skills in balance and riding - just isn't there because they don't have the experience.

GD: And maybe because people are not in as good a shape in general as they used to be?

BB: Oh, absolutely. The only thing that holds your body together is muscle, and if your muscles are not in tone, and you're packing a lot of tallow, it's pretty easy to get hurt. Even falling five or six feet, that's a long way to fall from a horse.

GD: How do you book your seminars? How do people get in touch with you?

BB: ( laughs) Oh, that's not easy. I have a website, www.brannaman.com and people will email me there. Sometimes, they just want to talk a little bit, or they have a question. It's sometimes hard to answer a horse question through email, without seeing the person, and seeing the horse, but I always answer the emails. It makes them feel better that I give a damn enough to answer their emails. So I try to get back to people that way.

As far as booking the clinics, it's all grown out of word of mouth, and it's gone from one end of the United States to the other, to New Zealand and Australia, and everywhere. I get about 100 offers a year to come do a clinic somewhere, but I'm full right now, and I'm full for an indefinite period of time. I do have a waiting list, if they're really interested. If I have a weekend open up, I'll go there. But then, when I call them, some people don't have horses anymore! So maybe it was better off I didn't go in the first place, because the commitment to the horses wasn't there.

GD: Is that your sense of timing that you speak of in your book? ( referring to his observations that there are no accidents)

BB: ( nods slowly) Yes. I think that's something we learn a little more about that all the time.

GD: If you can catch the rhythms of what you're doing in your life, you can see all the correlations just fall into place.

BB: ( continues nodding) Yep.

GD: This method you teach has gained has become much more widely accepted in the last 20 years.

BB: Oh, that's definite.

GD: Where would you like to see it go?

BB: Well, Ray Hunt put it pretty well. He hoped one day a little kid would be working his horse, and some guy would come up and say, what are you doing? Did Ray Hunt show you that? And the kid says, No, nobody showed me that – that's the only way of doing it, isn't it?

The reason I say it's the only way is that the horse helped to make up the rules here. This is taken from the horse's point of view. As a result it's come from men like myself studying their entire lives to understand the horse. I'd like to think it just keeps getting bigger, a little more accepted all the time…where I'm headed, I really don't know, but I'm definitely not lost. ( smiles)

GD: In your book, you mention you are “always leaving,” while on the road giving seminars and clinics. What do you want to leave behind you?

BB: Of course, you're hoping to leave some people behind who are better horsemen. Even more importantly than that, to have the opportunity to help someone in their life in some way…to make their life better. Or take the things they learned and made someone else's life better as a result. Maybe something way beyond the scope of the horses – I think that is the big picture.

GD: Like the pebble in the pool?

BB: Yes.

GD: I think this is the most important clinic we've had in Central Oregon in some time. I know many people move here, excited to have horses, but not really understanding what that means. If everyone in this clinic can take what you have taught home to there neighbors, and everybody will be better off.

BB: That's what I'm hoping.