“Timing is everything.”
— Buck Brannaman
“Gentle in what you do, Firm in how you do it.”
“Your Horse is a mirror to your soul.”
“I’m still on the move, I’m getting better because I’m still studying. I still want to be a better horseman.”
“Well you learn from making mistakes. It’s that simple.”
“There are things that the horse did for me that a human couldn’t have done.”
“When you find that the horse is compelled and interested in you, something in you changes. That can be healing or move you deeply.”
“My work is my play. I found a way to make my passion to be the same as how I make a living.”
“Not all horses are going to be show jumpers, not all horses are going to be dressage horses. So you have to sort of find where the horse physically fits into what might suit him, but all horses can be comfortable and all horses can have good, solid fundamentals.”
“Someone might steal your childhood, but they can’t steal your will. There is a point where you’re given the opportunity in life to stop blaming everyone else and start taking responsibility for your life.”
“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.”
“With the horse I always consider that if I do too much in too little time and I’m not patient, he’s gonna shut down and I won’t get anything done.”
“Like Tom Dorrance said, ‘It boiled down to one thing: observe, remember, and compare.’ Do something, observe what you did, remember what you did, compare it to what you were doing before, and adjust.”
“If I had a horse buck with me now, I’m a little disappointed. It’s not the end of the world, but I’m a little disappointed if I couldn’t keep the horse out of trouble, whereas it used to be a source of pride, and now it’s sort of source of shame if I let the horse get lost.”
“They say nerves heal real slowly. Lots of things about us heal real slowly.”
“Nobody has to lose for me to succeed and that is a unique job. Everybody wins, horse wins, people win, I win.”
“You can’t make something happen with a horse, but you can fix things up and let it happen.”
“It is all about the quality of the communication, not the quantity.”
“In life, we don’t know why things happen. I believe God is not responsible for the bad things that happen to you. Sometimes I think He’s responsible for the good things, but sometimes it’s something you shape up for yourself.”
“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.”
“You’re trying to figure out a way to meet a horse to where he can understand. And to me, it’s not to train a horse, it’s to try to get the horse with you where it’s one mind and one body. You may spend your whole life chasing that, but it’s a good thing to chase.”
“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.”
“There have been so many times over the years where people have said “Man, I thought I was just coming to this deal to get a little handier with my horse” and I’ll say “Well, in the beginning, I thought that’s all you were coming for too. But it turns out it’s about something else.””
“The horse responds to comfort, they respond to peace better than about anything else you could do. All he wants you to do is just leave him alone. So if the horse responds to you and you give him a little peace and comfort that means more to him than anything.”
“That’s the cool thing about horses – they don’t have prejudice. They don’t care if you’re tall or thin or if you’re dark or if you’re light, or if you’re rich or you’re poor, if you’re handsome or not so handsome.”
“Most people think of a feel as when you touch something or someone and what it feels like to your fingers but, a feel can have a thousand different definitions. Sometimes feel is a mental thing. Sometimes feel can happen clear ’cross the arena. Sort of an invitation from the horse to come to you.”
“A lot of times, rather than helping people with horse problems, I’m helping horses with people problems.”
“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.”
“If you miss the beginning, the basics, then you are destined to go back and visit the basics.”
“The horse saved my life, so that’s kind of why I’ll spend the rest of mine trying to help them.”
“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.”
“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.”
“That absolute pure honesty of the horse, man that’s just the greatest thing there is.”
“In nature this animal would have nothing to do with you. “Natural horsemanship” is just words. It’s not natural at all. There’s an abundance of trust that must be developed for you. Imagine if humans were that pliable.”
“Controlling your emotions is the biggest challenge for a horseman.”
“You have to plan ahead so that rather then seek revenge for the horse’s misbehavior, you see his aggressive behavior shaping up and can redirect it. You change his mind before he’s acted and move on to something else.”
“It’s amazing what a healing effect horses can have on kids, particularly troubled kids, that might bridge the gap that a well-intended human just can’t do.”
“The road may bend out of sight at times, but I know what lies ahead: the faraway horses.”
“You allow a horse to make mistakes, the horse will learn from mistakes no different than the human. But you can’t get him to where he dreads making mistakes for fear of what’s going to happen after he does.”
“Whether it’s horses or whatever it is you do, it doesn’t become an art until your soul goes into what you do.”
“When you see a horse that’s troubled, you sort of feel sorry for them, yet that doesn’t mean that you wouldn’t still ask the horse to behave and find a way to fit in and respond to you as well.”
“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.”
“Horses aren’t lazy and they’re not greedy and they’re not jealous and they’re not spiteful, they’re not hateful. They’re not that way. But the human can sometimes only describe a horse in the way that they view other human beings.”
“Whether one was going to have a horse, or a dog, or a child, with that comes a great responsibility to raise them.”
“It’s not about how much pressure you put on, it’s how good you are at taking it off.”
“You don’t have contempt for a horse that’s troubled. Everybody has baggage, everybody has things that they’ve had to deal with in their life, and it can be something positive depending on how you use it.”
“Horses are very sensitive and perceptive. You don’t have to be physical with them.”
“All your horse looks for is the thing that matters most, peace and contentment. Give it to him.”
“My teachers used to tell me you need to learn to adjust to fit the situation. Don’t just do what you’ve always done because it might not always work.”
“I’ve often told people who ask if there is a God: Get around enough people with horses and see what happens. See how they survive in spite of all the things they do, and you’ll become a believer!”
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