I have a weird obsession with horse trainer Buck Brannaman—“weird” because I’m not really a horse person. It’s not that I don’t like horses, but I didn’t grow up with them, I’ve only ridden one once, and I’ve never been into cowboys or that whole aesthetic. On the surface, there’s nothing about Buck I should be into. Except that I am.
It started a few years ago when I was at home sick and surfing through Netflix documentaries for something I could fall asleep to. That’s when I came across Buck, a 2011 documentary about a horse trainer I had never heard of but who apparently served as inspiration for The Horse Whisperer (a novel I have never read and a movie I have never seen). It turned out to be much more interesting than I imagined. Dude is fascinating.
Buck, like his mentor Roy Hunt, takes a radically different approach to horsemanship than you might expect. Instead of the violent, abusive tactic commonly used to “break” horses, he advocates for a calmer, gentler routine, one that doesn’t force a horse to do anything but rather works with the animal’s sensitive nature to gain its trust. Buck’s basic philosophy is that if you’re having a problem with your horse, it’s probably your fault. He can get brutally personal. Not uncommonly does he make people who attend his horse clinics cry.
His philosophy toward horses stems from his own sad story. His mother died when he was young and his father was horribly abusive, forcing him and his brother to be trick ropers when they were little kids. Buck ended up escaping his abusive father and channeling all his empathy for traumatized children into horses. Now he travels around the country trying to get people to not abuse their horses (and to be better people in the process).
Buck was in Ellensburg last weekend, so I decided to see what he’d be like in person. Although there was a lot I didn’t understand (there are endless technical terms related to riding and roping), and the heat was oppressive, I came away with some basic tenets for everyday life:
• Don’t be an inferior horse(wo)man
Buck doesn’t like inferior horsemanship. If you’re doing something wrong, he will tell you, and he will be very specific. He has no tolerance for people who are doing it wrong (even slightly). If you’re going to do it wrong, you’re going to hurt yourself, your horse, and/or someone else. Don’t be that person.
• Practice… a lot
You have to put in a lot of time to be a good horseman. You can’t just do it in your spare time. You have to dedicate your life to it. The movements have to become innate, muscle memory. You know how basketball players always begin a game warming up with layups? Over and over again? Be like them. Always do your layups.
• Don’t underestimate the level of skill involved
Besides all the particulars related to how to actually ride a horse and gain its trust, there is also a staggering level of detail related to roping cattle: how to hold your rope, the angle at which you come in to rope, the angle at which you throw your rope, how close you are when you throw your rope, the force with which you throw your rope, what to do with your horse and your rope after you rope, et cetera, et cetera. I’m not really into the practice of roping cattle (though I do eat meat), but as a city person, this was an undeniably fascinating thing to watch in 2015. This went on for hours.
• Relax already
Buck is known for getting personal with his riders, and at one point he did just that with a woman in the clinic, laying into her about how she finally looked relaxed on her horse, and how that was probably the first time she had ever been that relaxed on her horse (his sympathy was with the horse). I was sitting in the stands with the rest of the spectators, so I couldn’t see if she started crying or not, but I wouldn’t have been surprised. Buck can be harsh. Several times he commented that riders were simply getting their horses to make mistakes faster. Buck hates that. Do it right or don’t do it at all.
• There is an art to practical skill
Buck likened riding and roping to playing piano, or how a symphony performs. There are multiple moving parts acting independently, and when it all comes together, it can be a beautiful thing.
