As the little horse stood quietly with his head in my arms, a lady in the crowd who owned a local Arabian farm of her own spoke up. “Buck, now that you’ve gotten this horse coming around the way you have, when would we be able to start with the whips again? Would we be able to start tomorrow or would we have to wait till next week?”

She had no idea what she was saying. It was the most bizarre thing I’d ever heard, and from a woman who appeared to be so sophisticated. How could she say something so uncivilized?

I couldn’t take it, not after what the little horse had been through. “Some of you can go to church on Sunday and claim to be holier than thou, but the other six days of the week you’re torturing horses and committing crimes against them. You make me ashamed to be a human being.”

But that wasn’t all that bothered me. That little horse had made a friend that day. He appreciated what I had done with him — I know he did. Yet I went away with a sick feeling, wondering if maybe I had done him wrong. On one hand, I had helped him, but I had also showed him there was something good in life that he would always miss.

I later learned that he went back to his same life. In that world of barbarians, defense was his only means of survival, and I worried that I might have taken it away from him.

This is a quote from the book, The Faraway Horses, by Buck Brannaman.

Your horse will respond to your kindness. Build a trusting relationship with your horse with your horse’s relaxation as your goal. You and your horse will both be the better for it.

This is a link to Descript, the audio and video editor I use and recommend.

And this is a link to the Second Half Horsemanship website.