The Buck stops here

The last time I hung out with Buck Brannaman was in April 2005, when I rode Lyle in one of his clinics. 

Since then, Buck's been the subject of a pretty popular movie and the whole world has discovered him; 

it's not every horse trainer that goes mainstream.

Buck was giving a clinic in Santa Fe over the weekend and I went up to watch. 

I'm happy to report that all the newfound fame hasn't seemed to change him a bit.

He may be driving a fancier rig, and his p.a. system doesn't squeal and spook Lyle your horse
when you ride past the speaker anymore, but he's still the same Buck. 

He's teaching the same stuff, telling some of the same bad jokes, and still making what he does with horses

look so damned easy, I could just scream because it's anything but.

As good as he was with horses back in 2005, he keeps improving, finding new ways to explain and share his knowledge 

so that his students can catch on a little faster and with a deeper understanding of how to train a horse to "follow a feel."

Buck got a little melancholy talking about his mentor, Ray Hunt, who passed on in 2009. 

He shared a lot of stories about his early days with Ray and how much practice it took for him 

to learn and master the things that he teaches today.

Watching Buck ride is nothing short of inspirational – you can't help but want to run right home 

and practice all the stuff you've learned. Lucy has no idea what she's in for.

Here Buck is giving his students their homework assignment –

it's one of the same assignments he gave to me and Lyle back in the old days.

We may not have mastered anything else at that clinic, but we aced this one...eventually.

Next time you see me climbing a fence to make a video, maybe I'll be getting Lucy to move it on over.

The scene that always gets me

Each time I watch the movie "Buck," I learn something new or notice something that I missed previously. 

But no matter how many times I watch it, this is the image that leaves a lump in my throat.

A still shot can't capture the heartbreak or disappointment in Buck's walk.

I think that the scene epitomizes a horseman who believes that the horse is never wrong. 

If you've seen the film, you've heard Buck explain that, in this instance, a human has failed the horse. 

I would be inclined to wring this human's neck. Buck is more sensitive and understanding of the human's failings, 

which makes him a far better person than I.

Anyway, my other takeaways from watching "Buck" this time are thus:

I need to get my chinks modified with these handy-dandy clips. 

I can't believe how much time I've wasted buckling buckles.

Any man who likes pepper this much is my kind of guy.
 

And the hauntingly beautiful song that rolls over the credits is Pearl Jam's "Just Breathe," which is finally on my iPod.

"Live in the now. You can't live in two places at once." ~ Buck Brannaman

Down the Road with Smooch ~ July 2011

"Down the Road with Smooch" is a post that chronicles for posterity the who-what-where-when of our daily walk, 
on or about the first of every month.

Date: July 5, 2011

Route: around the fence line

Distance: 1.5 miles

Time: 6 to 7 a.m.

Temperature: 60 degrees

Humidity: 46 percent

Wind: zilch

On the iPod: The Horse Whisperer by Nicholas Sparks. I'm gearing up to see the movie "Buck" next weekend, so I thought I'd give this book a listen. I read it many years ago and have seen the movie a few times. This go-round, I'm imagining Buck Brannaman as the main character instead of Robert Redford. The wreck at the beginning of the story when Pilgrim and Grace are injured? Much more harrowing on audio than it was in the movie or in the book. There's no scanning the page or closing your eyes when you're listening to an audiobook.

Attire: Shorts, tank top, socks, sneakers, baseball cap.

Observations: My walks with Smooch are almost always taken in the early evening, but today we headed out at sunrise to beat the heat. The light was gorgeous, so I suppose we should do this morning thing more often.

The two-tenths of an inch of rain that fell on Sunday was enough to tamp the dust into dirt. Walking along on solid ground was a nice change of pace.

Even though I'm a morning person, I'm no match for Smooch's energy level at 6 a.m. Lordy, that dog was busy. Apparently the scents on the ground are stronger in the morning, maybe because the sun hasn't baked them away? Anyway, Smooch had to track every rabbit, pronghorn and coyote that had walked down the road overnight. It took forever to make the circuit around the fenceline.

The coyotes sing their loudest at sunrise, so we stopped often to listen to them ... and take pictures. There had to be a chorus of at least a dozen, and they sounded like they were only a hundred yards away. But we didn't see a one. I suppose that's a good thing.

This picture and the silhouette above were taken just a few minutes apart. 

I never cease to be amazed by light and what happens when I shoot into it and away from it.

Maybe when it's time for the August edition of Down the Road with Smooch, the pasture will be green.

The buzz on "Buck"

There's a movie coming out this summer that I'm hoping you will all go and see. I know you're going to like it because, if you're a reader of this blog, you love animals and probably have at least a passing interest in horses, cowboys and the west.

It's a documentary about Buck Brannaman, the horseman upon whom Robert Redford's movie "The Horse Whisperer" was based.

Here's the studio's summary of the movie:

Buck, a richly textured and visually stunning film, follows Brannaman from his abusive childhood to his phenomenally successful approach to horses. A real life “horse-whisperer”, he eschews the violence of his upbringing and teaches people to communicate with horses through leadership and sensitivity, not punishment. Buck possesses near magical abilities as he dramatically transforms horses - and people - with his understanding, compassion and respect. In this film, the animal-human relationship becomes a metaphor for facing the daily challenges of life. A truly American story about an unsung hero, Buck is about an ordinary man who has made an extraordinary life despite tremendous odds.

I've been following @Buckthefilm on twitter ever since it won the Audience Award at the Sundance Film Festival, and it's been exciting to watch the buzz on this film grow among mainstream critics and non-horse people. I have yet to read a bad review – and I'm not kidding when I say I've read at least 50. Two reviewers did mention that the film seemed a bit hagiographic. Huh? I looked up the word and, yes, I suppose it might come off as "a biography that treats its subject as if he were a saint." But you know what? I've ridden with Buck twice, once on Hank and once on Lyle, and witnessed how this man understands and communicates with horses. From the horses' perspective, Buck does meet the criteria for sainthood.

Buck is the real deal. He's as plainspoken and forthright as a man can be, and funny, too. I absolutely cannot wait to watch him tonight on Letterman.

The film opened up last weekend on both coasts and will work its way to across the middle of the country this summer. Here is a link to the release schedule by city. It's coming to Albuquerque on July 1 and you can guess where I will be that day. Mom, Dad, it's opening at a bunch of places near you tomorrow. You'll love it. Promise!

I know it probably seems silly to be sort of reviewing a movie I haven't seen yet, but so be it. I know it's great. And I will climb further out on the limb by saying that come Oscar time next year? There will be one movie in that list of "Best Documentary Feature" nominees that I actually will have seen.

Does Ft. Worth ever cross your mind?

I got an e-mail last week about the Ray Hunt Memorial Clinic, A Tribute to the Legacy of a Legend, in Ft. Worth on February 27 and 28, 2010. I've been thinking about going ever since. It's only 756 miles from here. Ouch.



You can click here for more details, but a bunch of Ray's students (including Buck Brannaman, Martin Black, Peter Campbell, Tom Curtain...the list goes on and on) have been invited to demonstrate how they work with a young horse. They were chosen and are being honored for their dedication to the horse and to Ray's legacy. Far from a colt-starting competition, each presenter gets 45 minutes to work with a horse they've never met and will be critiqued by a panel of judges and the audience on the basis of who best employed Ray's methods and teachings. And the winner gets ... are you ready for this? ... Ray's saddle. Yowsah. The opportunity to watch all these guys (and one gal - Lee Smith) at one event is almost more than I can stand. The website does mention the possibility of a DVD being produced, so purchasing that will be my plan B. But plan A, a road trip to Ft. Worth, sounds like way more fun...except for the 756 miles part.

Lyle moves it on over

I broke the news to Lyle this morning that I've signed us up for some continuing education. We're going to a two-day Tom Curtain horsemanship clinic in Albuquerque at the end of September. I love going to these clinics and learning new things, and it's been four long years since our last one. Lyle has stayed sound for eight months amen, so it's about time we got out of our comfort zone and kicked it up a notch.

The last clinic we attended was taught by Buck Brannaman. When one of the participants climbed up on the pipe railing of the arena and mounted her horse from there, Buck told the rest of us that it was a valuable lesson to teach our horses, though I can't remember his rationale. He explained the principles (basically make the right thing easy and the wrong thing difficult) and gave it to us as a homework assignment. Lyle caught on to the idea pretty quick, and we've been making good use of it ever since.



The older and stiffer and shorter I get, the more I learn to appreciate this valuable lesson.

My Top 15 Horse Tips

My pal Victoria over at Teachings of the Horse passed along the “Great Horse Tips Award” to me today, and I am honored. I’ve got more tips than a Beverly Hills nail salon, so I’m happy to share them with anyone who might be interested.

My horsekeeping is all about safety for my horses and efficiency for me.

Tip #1 - Don’t keep your tack in your barn if you can help it.
Unless you are Martha Stewart and have a large staff and a hermetically sealed tack room in your barn, your tack will be covered in dust. I keep mine in the garage, which is conveniently located next to the Horse Porch. The blue container with the duct-taped cross? That would be the equine first aid kit.



Tip #2 - Have a safe, protected area to tack up, doctor, bathe, trim, and otherwise care for your horse.
This is the Horse Porch, which connects to the garage. It’s convenient, out of the wind most of the time, and in the shade. There is a concrete patio along one side, but the area where the horses stand is a layer of crusher fines about 6” deep - it’s easy on their feet and absorbs water.

As long as we're here, I’ll share some of my favorite things in my grooming caddy:
Oster grooming tools - well designed and well made.
Cowboy Magic - makes mane and tail combing really easy and smells great.
Weight tape - I’m obsessed with keeping my horses healthy, and monitoring their weight is part of that.
Healthy Hair Care Products Herbal Horse Wash - for those times when the horses do have a “spa day,” this stuff connects to the hose and dispenses the right amount of soap. It rinses off easily, too. The herbal ingredients seem to soothe Lyle’s skin during allergy season.
HHCP Hair Moisturizer - this is a concentrate that you dilute with water and use in a spray bottle. I spray it on my finishing brush and it helps remove that top layer of dust from their coats.
Happy Glove - that’s the black rubber mitten with the little nubbies on it. My guys LOVE to get scratched all over with this thing, and it’s really good for getting the crud off their legs.
Curved rubber squeegee - much better than a straight sweat scraper for removing most of the water after a shower.


Tip #3 - Hot and cold water for shower time
I rarely give my horses full-blown shampoo-and-conditioner baths, but I do like to hose them off in the summer after hot and sweaty rides. My house-builder claimed that an outdoor faucet which mixes the hot and cold water was not available, so I improvised with some various hose thingys.


Tip #4 - Skidmore’s Leather Cream
The woman who made my chinks (Barbara at thebuckskinlady.com ... a must-have for every self-indulgent cowgirl who wants to give herself a REALLY nice present) recommended Skidmore’s, and this stuff is too awesome for words.

(That's Smooch in the background, still hunting for hoof trimmings from the farrier's last visit.)

Tip #5 - A night latch
I first learned about this handy-dandy piece of tack from Buck Brannaman. You can buy the fancy-schmancy official kind from a tack shop, or you can use a sturdy dog collar. Either way, the effect is the same. You buckle it around the pommel of the saddle. It gives you a much firmer grip than holdin’ onto the saddle horn when your horse gets western.


Tip #6 - Manure Management 101
A clean barn/corral is another of my obsessions. Here is my arsenal of poop-scoopin’ tools: a Rubbermaid cart with tires that don’t need air and can be pulled with one hand - I collect the poop a few times a day with this; all the collected poop gets transferred to a Newer Spreader; then every other day, I tow the Newer Spreader to a sacrifice area and drive it around – the poop gets crumbled and spread and eventually turns back into dirt.


Tip #7 - Portable corral panels
Every horse facility should have a bunch of these. They come in handy in lots of ways: as a temporary pen for a guest horse; as a set of stocks to safely doctor an uncooperative horse; as dividers for a quarantine area. I’ve had the kinds that assemble with pins and the kinds that go together with chains - chains are definitely the way to go, imho.


Tip #8 - You can never be too careful
For my convenience, the feed room door is right near the stalls - that means the horses have access to it, too. So the door is double-latched.


I’ve gotten carried away here and this post is long enough. And I've got to go scoop poop one more time before it gets dark. Look for tips #9 - 15 tomorrow.

The Story of Lyle, Part 2

Lyle did his best to snap me out of my grief – he was born with a sense of humor.

I knew I would get another horse at some point to keep him company, but that would take time, so I borrowed a pony, Jimmy, from a neighbor for the interim. Jimmy had permanently googly eyes and was just plain weird; my eagerness to get him out of the picture prompted me to start looking for another horse more quickly than I would have otherwise.

It took about two months to find “Mr. Right.” He was listed on a website; I still have the ad: “Looking for a new partner? This may be the one! Cochise is an 8 year old 15.1 hand bay Paint gelding, ridden and shown Western and English by a young girl, who has moved on to jumping. A breeze to load and clip, he's a healthy easy keeper with a sweet and calm disposition. He's great on the trails and gets along well with other horses.”
I made several trips to Santa Fe to ride him. It didn’t take long to decide he was the one, but the name Cochise had to go, so he was re-baptized Hank (as in Sr.).

Hank and Lyle buddied up instantly. I can’t say the same for Hank and me – he quickly decided I was pond scum. But over the next year, after walking home alone more times than I can count and hours and hours of groundwork, I finally earned a little of his respect. And all the lessons learned with Hank helped me put a start on Lyle’s ground training. I was way out of my league, though, having never trained a yearling, so I found a trainer along the way to train me to train Lyle (thank you, Randall Davis).

Here is Lyle at his first birthday party ... he was turning his nose up at a whiff of white wine ­– how was I to know he preferred red?

Kevin, our vet, proclaimed Lyle physically ready to get started under saddle when he was 2 and half. About that time, I learned Ray Hunt was coming to New Mexico to teach a four-day clinic – colt starting in the morning and horsemanship in the afternoon. Cool! I could take both horses and participate in both sessions. However, Hank decided to make the clinic even more challenging – he got western on me during a trail ride four days before I was supposed to leave. I stayed in the saddle but broke my hand in the process. I had surgery to screw the bones together on Tuesday and left for the clinic on Thursday. Probably not the best decision I’d ever made, but I knew Ray was getting kind of old and I couldn’t pass up this once-in-a-lifetime opportunity.

There were about 10 of us in the colt-starting clinic...9 of them were strapping young cowboys, wearing chaps and looking good...experienced colt starters who wanted to show off under Ray’s watchful eye. I was the one not wearing chaps - the 48-year-old woman in the purple cast and helmet. Could I have stuck out any more?? And Lyle was as out of his element as I was. When all the colts were turned out together in the arena, he would run over to me instead of running with the herd. The cowboys kept calling him “Mama’s Boy.” Well, we showed them. I got Lyle saddled, climbed on him using one hand, and was riding him on the second day. And he didn’t buck once.

Somehow I managed to live through the whole four days, riding Lyle in the morning, riding Hank in the afternoon, and being humiliated and decapitated by Ray Hunt all day long. Ray’s style is about a light year beyond “tough love” – he’s there for the horse only, and I was ok with that. But God help the human with thin skin. And geez oh man, did I learn. Did I mention there were about 100 spectators watching our every move...and it rained almost the whole time...and I was living out of my non-living-quarters horse trailer? In this instance, “what doesn’t kill you makes you stronger” was not a worn-out cliché.

You know how when you’ve anticipated something for so long and it’s over and done and you’re sitting there thinking, “did that really just happen?” Yep, that was what I was thinking the whole way home. I did it – I started my first colt. Wow. And the helmet-wearing old broad with the purple cast earned the respect of the cowboys, too. Cool.

But now what would I do? I knew my hand was more broken than when I had left and it would be awhile before I should ride again, so I found a local trainer to help me for the next few months. Lyle tested her at every opportunity – he was smart and easily bored. We made progress, but his attitude was always more noticeable than his abilities.

Ray Hunt came back to New Mexico for another clinic that summer and, glutton for punishment that I am, I took Lyle for the horsemanship sessions.  We did ok, but Lyle was far from a “finished” horse. When we got home this time, I sent Lyle to Randall Davis for 30 days of remedial lessons and to fix the bad behaviors for which I was solely responsible.

Sure enough, Lyle came home a finished horse...soft and responsive and not nearly as much of a knucklehead as when I had dropped him off. My challenge was to keep him that way. I rode him as much as I could and took advantage of every opportunity to advance my horsemanship.

In April 2005, Lyle and I participated in a 4-day clinic with Buck Brannaman. While not as harsh as Ray, they were definitely cut from the same cloth. At least when Buck chastised me, he did it with a smile on his face. And geez oh man, did I learn. In the month after the clinic, I had my best rides on Lyle ever. Everything had finally clicked for us.

To be continued...