Buck Brannaman Quotes

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.

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.

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.

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.

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

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.

Think of the horse as your partner.and it's all one great dance. That's not to say it's always going to be easy or you won't have to work through issues. But when a horse is troubled or uncomfortable in our world, rather than show contempt for him, you must demonstrate empathy and work to convince him that you mean him no harm. You have some things that you'd like him to do 'with you', as opposed to 'for you'- and the best way to do that is as partners.

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

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

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.

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

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

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.

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.

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.

It’s not about how much pressure you put on, it’s how good you are at taking it off.

Gentle in what you do, Firm in how you do it

There are things that the horse did for me that a human couldn't have done.

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.

Horses are consistent and logical. The horse will do what is easiest for him. If you make it easy for him to buck you off, kick you, and run away, that’s just what he’s going to do. And more power to him. But if you make it easy for the horse to be relaxed and calm and accurate — and also have it be a beautiful dance between you and the horse — it won’t be too long before he’ll be hunting for that just as hard as you are. Whatever you make easy for the horse, that’s what he’s going to get good at.

You can't look forward and backward at the same time...........so I choose to look forward.

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.

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.

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.

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