I hear the load noise as I enter the Aintree Grand National’s main indoor arena in Liverpool. The arena is basically full of excitied people who have come to look at this clinic. The manege is full with horses and riders, so many that it hardly looks like there is room. Then he comes, the American cowboy everyone has been waiting for – Buck Brannaman. Or as he is also called, “The horse whisperer.”
Text and photo: Anneli Westlund
In full cowboy clothes with chaps, boots and western hat and a horse at his
side, he steps into the manege, for the very first time in Great Britain to hold a three-day clinic in Horsemanship. His nickname “The horse whisperer” he received when he was inspiration, trainer and consultant for the movie “The Man Who Could Talk to Horses” with Robert Redford.
Buck is regarded as one of the best and most experienced horse trainers in the world, himself trained by the legendary Tom Dorrance and Ray Hunt. In the documentary movie BUCK, which was shown on television some years ago, he became famous around the world.
He starts the day by demonstrating the ground work of moving the horse’s feet and especially moving the hindquarter of the horse. He explains that the foundation from the ground is important to be able to control the horse from horseback.
He demonstrates with a kind of stick with a so-called flag at the end that the horse moves for.
“It’s not to scare the horse,” he says. But it’s getting clearer for him. The flag motivates the horse to walk, to follow the feeling and purpose “do not force me to push you”. Ray Hunt once said he regretted showing his work with the flag in front of people.
I wondered why and he explained sadly that now there had been made sticks and then they had put ropes on sticks so it had been turned to using a whip to hit the horse with. He turns to the horse and comments further on the equipment he uses.
“I use a rope halter and a leadrope. There are trainers who sell leadropes as well, but it’s just about selling. Not about the horse. They sell junk. Tie your own rope instead of wasting the money”, he advises.
He also shows how he uses a rope around the horse’s fetlock and conducts his foot as it leaves the ground, something he brings up to horseback.
Buck points out that you have to be able to control the horse’s feet. Non-horsemen use cross-ties when tying up horses. They do not have any horsemanship and cannot control the horse’s feet in the leadrope. Many accidents happen in cross-ties”, he says.
Exercises under saddle
Eventually the riders sit up and Buck shows and tells first on his borrowed horse. Then the riders get to try it for themselves.
There are two groups riding. One group in the morning and one group in the afternoon. The riders are crowded on the riding arena, some riders on classic quarter horses with full western equipment, but also English riders on half-breeds and Spanish-inspired riders.
It’s so full with the riders that you think they’re going to ride into each other, but no horse gets trapped.
Buck shows an exercise, lateral flexion, which he uses to stop the horse. He reaches for the horse’s head on the reins and brings the neck to one side. The horse takes around the head and moves the hind legs in a circle.
“They’re resisting at first,” he says. Then they give. Use ninety degree bending and do not jerk around the horse’s head. Use feeling! It should not be unpleasant, they should not be afraid of the hands.
The horse should follow my feel and “turning loose”. Feel the resistance, don’t deny it. The horse should be dedicated to stopping and light as a feather”, Buck continues, demonstrating the three positions on his horse.
Position one is to take the elbow to the ribs. Position 2 is to wait for the horse to respond and position three to give release.
There is a difference in the horse responding or reacting. He shows the riders an exercise he calls “short serpentine” to train on lateral flexion. It is a lateral bending to the inside in ninety degrees to the chest performed in small serpentines similar to a series of eight-figure in a row.
-If you can master that exercise, it will change you and your horse for the rest of your life, he says convincingly.
– If the horse goes against or is tense, walk in a circle until the horse is soft and then go back to the original exercise. Keep him moving forward! Use the serpentine as a tool.
Always keep the horse forward and bend a horse that has tension – it keeps you safe. If you stack away with a horse on loose rein and if it takes over and goes faster, you silence the horse by stopping it with one rein.
Soft feel
Buck shows the next exercise where you want to achieve a stop with a “soft feel”- the horse is indulgent in lateral flexion. When “the soft feel” is reliable, it offers vertical flexion after the lateral balance earlier.
When working on a soft feel, you have to think about how much the horse weighs. Sometimes it can bend its neck for you but there is a heavyness in there, and you are looking for the horse to be soft.
-Practice a soft feel a few times until it feels right, that the horse is soft and indulgent, Buck explains. Keep him moving forward and ready for transition.
Plan A is a soft feeling and energy in the body, slow down and if he doesn’t respond, grab him with his hands and cause it.
-I make him soft, make him slow down and if he can’t stay there, I’ll work on it and don’t change the subject. I keep working on it until I can slow down my body and make him walk without any hassle.
Sometimes you can do the right things but you didn’t go on long enough to do the horse any good. You still have to go to plan B to get the job done.
I can work with a soft feel by bending laterally to the left, then right and trying not to lose “the soft feel”. Ride forward, move him over and give release.
I don’t push him all the time. I’ll tell the horse that if you give this to me, there’s a good thing over here if you just give in to me.
If I don’t give the horse that relief, he’ll pretty soon feel like I’m just picking on him. No hands if I can’t help but if you don’t get through from my legs, I’m going to help you with my hands and time that foot.
There is very little resistance from the horse if you conduct the hind foot when it leaves the ground.
Become the horse’s protector
Buck tells how he works to get the horse to follow his idea, by keeping the horse at the center of what he calls the “rectangle”.
The horse should feel that it is a good idea to move a bit this way and if it follows his idea, he shows the horse that he always keeps him away from problems.
The horse needs to realize that he does not have to worry, that he is as safe with him as with his mother.
If he learns that the rider is his protector, he will be completely different to ride than a horse that must constantly concentrate on taking care of himself, against threats and dangers.
He concentrates on survival. Fighting with the horse will never work but always to move his feet.
When the horse feels insecure, I always have a safe place for him. As soon as he feels uncomfortable, I say: I feel it too, let’s move us over there. I know all the cool places!
Pretty soon he realizes that every time he gives feedback to you, you take pressure off him.
Pretty soon he becomes willing to move, because every time he goes for peace. I’ll take him to the peaceful. I can be a hero to the horse when he realizes I’m keeping him out of trouble.
It feels good for him and changes the way the horse looks at you. “If you go where I say, we don’t have a problem.”
Stay in the rectangle
Furthermore, Buck tells us that if the horse is drawn to another horse in the arena or to the gate, he tries to keep him in the center of the “rectangle” as he calls it, and be as peaceful as he can be. The smaller the rectangle, the safer the horse to ride.
To make this rectangle thing work, the horse must have peace in a peaceful place when he is in the center, either on loose rein or collected. On a green horse, it’s on a loose rein. The horse wants to go to the center in the rectangle because there is peace.
-The reason why horses go against the legs and come off course is because they believe that peace occurs by going in that direction, Buck says. It’s an escape thing. Maneuvering the rectangle becomes a sacred promise between the rider and the horse. “If you do your part and stay in the center, I’ll do my part and make your life as peaceful as I can.”
-Stay centered in the rectangle if the horse becomes afraid of something. If you let them spin, they can spin in and fall with you, he explains. If you get the horse to work in the center as much as you, he is easy to ride. Let’s say you get your soft feel developed enough so you can start making a side movement, Buck continues educationally.
-I do not do side movement on the horse until “the soft feel” is confirmed and good. Then I start asking him to move aside. Let’s say you should use side movement as a correction. He goes off course maybe four feet. I might then take him sideways twelve feet to re-center the horse.
Like sometimes when you ride around the track, the horse goes away from the track, you take him back, he slides away, you take him back and it’s like you never achieve anything.
And then pretty soon you try to keep him there and he starts leaning on you. If you keep him there and let go of all the aids, he’ll go off course.
-That horse is nowhere near being in the center, says Buck, shaking his head. If you keep fighting, you can get where you were going, but he’s not dedicated to staying on course. It destroys horses.
-So if I have a horse that doesn’t want to stay there and gets off course when I let go of the aids, I have to be extreme and maybe circle that way, or maybe side-move that way until I can drop the aid and he stays on course where I want him to go, rather than overmaneuvering him constantly because if you use it, it will not be long before he goes against your hands and your legs and you do not get much done.
-Many of you didn’t go into the corners, he tell the riders. Horses don’t lose their shoulders in the wild, but people train them to it by cutting the corners. What I would do then depends on the horse but maybe I should keep a soft feel and side move him into the corners and give in, every time he cuts in, sideways move him out and give release. But I wouldn’t do side movement on a green horse because it would ruin him. Then maybe I’d say:
-Oh, you gave me some space. Good! Let’s make a circle to the right in that corner and hopefully you cut it so we can work on that circle to the right. I make a circle to the right, ride to the next corner, he avoids the corner and I ride a circle to the right there and continue like that. Pretty soon he thinks: “Maybe I don’t want to make a circle, maybe I’ll just go into the corner. Great idea! And you didn’t force it. You let it happen.
So it’s something that can work for you and that you can think about. You’ll be surprised at how thorough the horse is. When you feel that the horse is not with you, you have to make the dance interesting enough and imaginative enough to get the horse with you, because sometimes the way people ride is so boring. I teach these different movements and make the dance enough to engage the horse.
Don’t be a passenger on the horse
Buck tells us that many ride out on their horses and it’s great if they can maintain the integrity of proper riding when they’re out there and not just bubbly along.
-In a group, only one or two people actually ride the horse. The rest are just passengers, he says.
-They come home to their husband or wife and children and say, “I had a lovely ride today, everything went well”. But if the horse was talking, he’d say, “Were you even there?” says Buck, and the whole audience laughs.
-You’ve been out for hours, but the horse hasn’t even noticed you. And that’s what makes horses herd-bound, he continues. When people ride in a group and are not really involved in the horse and it gets all its support from its own kind, it becomes more herd-bound every time because all the support he gets is from other horses when you ride.
Change the subject instead of punishing
When one of the riders sits and spurs the horse hard, time and time again, he tells her that she is doing wrong.
-You should not punish a horse, he explains with a serious voice. Try to move the horse without spurs. Just because you wear them doesn’t mean using them. With my own horses, you can’t tell the difference if I ride with or without spurs, he says.
-Just because you have them doesn’t mean you have to use them. It’s assault. Spurs are not a solution to your problems with the legs. When you punish him, it’s already over. How stupid is it to spur the horse and pick on him when he says from the very beginning that it does not want to be with you. It doesn’t feel better about you after that.
Get up to speed or do side-by-side moves, anything. You sometimes know when your husband wants to talk about something you don’t want to talk about. He just has started and then you change the subject and distract him.
-When he tries to focus on what he wants to say, you lead him in the other direction and change the subject until you think he “bought it” and then you say, “Honey, what did you want to talk about?” Ohh… it doesn’t matter, Buck smiles and the audience and riders laugh recognizing.
Buck is a humorous man who can entertain an audience and with his painterly descriptions he reaches everyone’s understanding. Sometimes his wife Mary, who has come along on the long journey, comes into the manege with water for him.
-When the horse goes in the wrong direction, you make him change his mind, he continues. You do it again and again and pretty soon he doesn’t know where he was, that’s what Ray meant when he said “learn to do less sooner, than more later.”
When something goes wrong, people tend to punish the horse, but it’s too late. When the horse thinks of sin, you should do something about it, not when sin has already occurred.
Check the hind quarter and the horse’s feet
Buck explains that at first, people aren’t aware of what the hind end is doing, but when they get to do these exercises, an awareness of where the hind part is all the time comes. He advises that you can feel the hind better if you work on a circle because then you feel the inner hind hoof easier. You can train with a friend who tells you when the horse takes off.
-You go, left, left, left, and your friend says wrong, wrong, wrong. Buck is greeted with laughter for his humorous undertone.
-Pretty soon it works fine but you have to work on it, he continues.
-It may seem time-consuming to learn where the horses feet are, but if you try to move a foot while standing on the ground, you won’t have anything but trouble. You get resistance in the reins and you think it has to do with his mouth. But it is the horse that defends himself and tries to keep his balance.
-Overbending horses is the result of not having reached the horse’s feet. When you get to that you can control the horse’s feet really carefully, it’s amazing how quickly they become light. Ray once told me: “My reins are not connected to the horse’s mouth, they are attached to the feet. You would have known if you had been paying attention!”
Buck shows how he trains the horse to move the hind quarter in four different ways:
- With the head in lateral flexion and move the hind quarter with only the legs
- With the horse centered with soft feel, holds and moves the hind away from the leg
- With the legs without hands
- With hands without the legs
-You wait and let the horse seek the answer and reward. The horse has a willingness to seek the answer mentally but many riders kill the search and the horse becomes like a zombie. If you respect the horse enough, you wait for it. If you master the four above exercises with a soft feel, side-side movements become easy, Buck says.
When moving the horse with your bare hands in the exercise, it is important not to cheat with your legs.
-With the principle of hand without legs – legs without hands, you have an opportunity when things get complicated. If every aid is used at the same time for the most simple things, what do you do when it gets complicated?
More exercises
Buck demonstrates how he back up the horse. He teaches the horse first with two hands, then gives release with one hand at a time, independently. Eventually he goes forward ten steps with the horse and back up ten steps. Goes forward nine steps and backs nine steps and continues so right down to zero. He shows how he uses an exercise to back up the horse in a circle. He backs straight back a few steps and then reaches for the horse on the reins and moves the forefoot one step with leading rein and gives release.
Another exercise he demonstrates is a pattern in the form of a tear, or drop of water. He stacks on loose reins in a semi circle and walks back towards the fence sideways.
Then he can canter straight down, bend one way, break off to trot then sideways towards the fence and take the canter. Then you do not have to break off to trot, but change the gallop in the jump.
You should not work the horse too much with short reins so that the horse wants the support all the time and you suddenly can not ride with loose reins. Now you’ve got a horse that leans on your hand.
Bucks riding philosophy
-There’s a place where you’re in perfect balance with the horse, like you’re not there. You shouldn’t be in the horse’s way and stop his movement. Ride in balance. Never take the balance away from them. In turns and spins, the rider is often in the way and the horses step on themselves. It’s a reining problem – they’re too far ahead, they turn the inner hind leg. When cow training, they turn the outer hind leg or it will be too late. The cow gets a head start.
-The way the horses were trained in the past comes from the classical riding program. When the horses were no longer needed in warfare, they were used as cattle horses instead, but they were trained in a classical way.
Ray could dig a hole in the ground with the horse’s hindleg, but when I tried to make a turn with my horse it looked as if the horse had met a violent death, he laughs.
Ray was able to move one hoof at a time, forward, backward or to the side without any visible signals. Ray said we see riders trained to ride with their chins up and sit nicely on their horses, but they can’t do anything with them.
Buck explains that some Western riders sit so far ahead with their legs as if they are watching a football game on the couch, and it does not do the horse any good to sit like that on the horse. He tries to tell people that if they don’t have their legs further ahead than they can affect the hind quarter and affect the front end, you have a good starting position. It has to do with timing.
Buck tells us that he has many jumping riders at his clinics and that he can’t believe how good riders are at getting the horses to refuse on the obstacles. A lot of times it’s the way they ride. The legs lie on the horse all the time with pressure without meaning.
All the time pressure, pressure, pressure. For the horse to move forward, it must be light for the legs. If the horse is “stunned”, you cannot help it over the obstacle. You have to have “life” in the horse. Life is not speed but the time it takes for the horse to respond and the amount of pressure you use to get it.
You’re supposed to offer the horse a good deal. For some people it’s kicking the horse a little bit and if it doesn’t go forward, you kick a lot. That’s not what Buck means. A good deal is to use the pelvis and some energy with the leg aids. Do not grab hold and dig the heel into the side.
-People have been doing it for thousands of years and it has never made a horse light, yet they do it with dedication. Only people can be so stupid, he laughs.
He usually says to people that the higher up the leg aid takes place on the leg, the more sophisticated you are as a rider.
The further down the leg aid is used, the more primitive you are as a rider. He explains that you have to do what is necessary to get “life” in the horse. You offer plan A by rolling the pelvis. If you don’t do well, go to plan B and get him to go. Offer less than you think it’ll take to get the job done and do what’s needed.
-I don’t believe in any trouble. I’ll work until the fight disappears. Something you don’t always think about is how to finish the job. If something goes wrong, you think you wished you dropped out ten minutes ago because then you still liked each other, but now you have a problem.
-I usually tell guys at my clinics to remember when they were dating. The last few minutes of that date can be crucial, he smiles. Everything has been going well all night and you’ve been charming and laughing, but if you the last few minutes say something stupid to her, she doesn’t want to see your ugly face again!
Buck believes that horses are often accused of being lazy, but they are not lazy but under the circumstances you ride the horse on, do it as best he can. If you hold on with your hands and driving with your legs at the same time, you teach the horse to lie down on your hand.
-Good riding is not to to ride with the muscles. It should be soft and the horse should be relaxed.
Many ride the horses in a restrictive way and build up pressure. They always pick on them, the horses don’t get peace. Tom Dorrance used to say, “Don’t treat them the way they are, treat them the way you want them to be.”
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