If the human isn’t responsible for their role in the horse human relationship, horses just don’t get along very well. So that’s why I say it’s all about the human meeting the bill to fit the horse in any given situation. But don’t expect the horse to always fit the human.

Buck Brannaman

Categorized in : Roles Bills Horse

Horses are very keen on body language, and what I refer to as “presence”, and expression. They know quite a bit about you before you ever get to ‘em. They can read things about you clear across an arena.

Buck Brannaman

horse expression animal

I don't want the horse to get trained, because training the horse is absolutely finite. But if you get the horse to where he operates as if to be your legs, an extension of you, you've far-exceeded that whole training notion.

Buck Brannaman

legs training horse

The horse is a great equalizer, he doesn't care how good looking you are, or how rich you are or how powerful you are-- he takes you for how you make him feel.

Buck Brannaman

horse powerful animal

Horses don’t think the same as humans. Something that’s most unique about the horse, that I love, is not what he possesses but what he doesn’t possess. And that is greed, spite, hate, jealousy, envy, prejudice. The horse doesn’t possess any of those things. If you think about people, the least desirable people to be around usually possess some or all of those things. And the way God made the horse, he left that out.

Buck Brannaman

horse jealousy hate

Whether it's horses or whatever it is you do, it doesn't become an art until your soul goes into what you do.

Buck Brannaman

horse soul art

The horse is a gift to us, to humanity. And for that, there comes responsibility. If the horse is gonna work for you and work with you, then the best thing I can do for the horse is to make it as good a life possible.

Buck Brannaman

horse responsibility humanity

Think of the horse as your partner.and it's all one great dance.

Buck Brannaman

horse mean thinking

When you first get started, you're the only one with a vision. When you become creative and use your imagination, pretty soon the things you imagined, you can get done. If you got a taste of it, if you got a taste of what I'm talking about, you'd rather do that than eat. You couldn't get enough of it. You'll hunger for it the rest of your life.

Buck Brannaman

creative imagination talking

Horses are incredibly forgiving. They fill in places we're not capable of filling ourselves.

Buck Brannaman

filling horse forgiving

It is all about the quality of the communication, not the quantity.

Buck Brannaman

quantity quality communication

Discipline isn't a dirty word. Far from it. Discipline is the one thing that separates us from chaos and anarchy. Discipline implies timing. It's the precursor to good behavior, and it never comes from bad behavior. People who associate discipline with punishment are wrong: with discipline, punishment is unnecessary.

Buck Brannaman

punishment discipline dirty

When you find that the horse is compelled and interested in you, something in you changes. That can be healing or move you deeply.

Buck Brannaman

horse healing moving

I don't believe in waiting for a horse to do the wrong thing and then punishing him after the fact. You can't just say no to a horse. You have to redirect a negative behavior with a positive one, something that works for both of you. It's as though you're saying - instead of doing that, we can do this together.

Buck Brannaman

horse waiting believe

The horse can just be a great vehicle for some people to overcome things in their life that they might not be able to overcome otherwise.

Buck Brannaman

horse overcoming people

With a horse, if you make it easy for him to do the right thing, that's what he will logically do, but it's not necessarily true with the human. You will see humans that will beat their heads against the wall rather than open the door and walk through it.

Buck Brannaman

horse wall doors

The horse saved my life, so that's kind of why I'll spend the rest of mine trying to help them.

Buck Brannaman

horse helping trying

The horse is so honest.... they live in the moment. And what they do, whether they need to protect themselves or whether they need to accept you really is directly relative to how you make them feel.

Buck Brannaman

horse live-in-the-moment needs

It's a matter of timing and of patience. Although it may seem nothing is happening on the surface, there may yet be profound changes occurring a little deeper. Waiting isn't bad.

Buck Brannaman

waiting may profound

The horse is a mirror to your soul... and sometimes you might not like what you see in the mirror.

Buck Brannaman

horse mirrors soul

I’ve always wanted to do the right thing by a horse, that’s never changed, its just that as my knowledge grew I’ve been able to offer the horse a better human being, as time has gone on.

Buck Brannaman

horse able gone