Buck Brannaman Quotes

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.

Solutions to problems often come from knowing when to ask for help.

Kind of where you end up your ride on a horse is so important. It's a little bit like when you guys were younger & you were dating, that last two minutes of the date can be a real deal breaker. With these horses it's the same thing you know? You got to quit on a good note.

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

My horse needs to be quiet enough not to draw my attention. You want your horse always aware of you. Be aware of your horse! Fidgeting? Direct that! Think of it as a gift. Do something with that energy; redirect it or it will be a negative. Don't let your horse check-out. A horse wants peace. Trade movement for peace.

You want your kids to feel happy and good about themselves. The rest they'll work out on their own. You never know what your kids will be drawn to.

You try to do as little as you can, but you need to do as much as is necessary to get a result. When you get a result, you do less.

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.

Once you have seen quality horsemanship and are exposed to the things you can do to help a horse be gentle and dependable, then why wouldn't you do those things? No matter what your horse's age, you are going to try to offer him the best that you can. If you adjust what you are doing, he will adjust too; horses have an amazing capacity to make changes. There is always hope.

I'm still on the move, I'm getting better because I'm still studying. I still want to be a better horseman.

You can accomplish amazing things with this if you have a passion and you work hard - I just think it's a cop out to say 'I wasn't born with this, so it's OK if I fail'. You can make up the difference with hard work and devotion.

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

Nobody has to lose for me to succeed and that is a unique job. Everybody wins, horse wins, people win, I win.

Horses are very sensitive and perceptive. You don't have to be physical with them.

Everything you do with a horse is a dance,

Simply put; I'm trying to see what I can get done with the horse without him being troubled about doing it.

A lot of times, rather than helping people with horse problems, I'm helping horses with people problems.

Anytime you are with a horse, no matter if you are a daily rider or one who just gets a chance to ride to the mailbox, you are interacting with your horse. It is all about the quality of the communication, not the quantity. Doing something right once in a while will far surpass anything done wrong more often.

Horses and life, it's all the same to me.

That's my credo - My work is play. I don't complain about work. I enjoy it. I like the feeling of being able to lay down at night and you're so doggone tired, you're just hoping to get undressed before you fall asleep.

I just spend my life driving down the road, training horses and helping people.

The horse needs to respect you, but sometimes people confuse respect & fear. And they're not the same at all.

The horse seems to wanna please the human and so many times if the human isn't much of a leader well then the horse has gotta do it's own thinking. The horse isn't really designed very well to be the leader but just because the horse is responding to ya, I don't really think of it as it succumbing to you. I think it's more of the horse sort of joining you, being more of a partner.

There's a difference between mastering something physical and working with an animal. There's a spiritual component to working with a horse. You're dealing with the spirit of a live animal that thinks and makes decisions.

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.

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.

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.

My daughter's all grown up now compared to what she was, but I used to say, I've got to have my horse to where if she's leading my horse somewhere, and she's got a big armload of Barbies and drops something out of her hand, that son of a buck ought to stop and respect her while she's gathering up all her dolls and not to walk on her or take advantage of her. And if I've done my work right, by gosh, that's what they'll do.

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.

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.

All your horse looks for is the thing that matters most, peace and contentment. Give it to him.

I'm not trying to turn you into cowboys, I'm just trying to get you better coordinated, get your horse used to things, get your horse comfortable.
Heck, on the first ride you should be swinging a rope off a horse. You should be doing this not so you can rope a cow, but just to get him (your horse) gentle.
You can't think of everything in life your horse might encounter that might make him afraid so you'd better prepare em for it in other ways.

One of the biggest challenges of a horsemen is to be able tot control your emotions.

Once I get the horse where he's responding and working for ya and has a good frame of mind and a good attitude, it's not just the horse that needs fixing. It's the human that needs fixing and it's the human that created that in the first place.

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.

Someone who doesn't know anything about the ways of the horse could be fooled into thinking the approach is all cosmic or mystical. It's not. Anybody can do it who has a passion to do it and has put in enough time. These people are horsemen and horsewomen, not whisperers.

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 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.

On a horse there is a perfect position of balance where he doesn't feel like he's pushing you along with him or dragging you along with him. It's like two converging currents in a river, where those currents converge, there is a point where there is no movement, no energy; and that's what you're thinking when you're on the back of a horse ...

When you're younger, you ride with 90% physical and 10% mental. But if you could learn how to use 90% mental and 10% physical you'd be better off.

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.

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

You get that horse to really operate as if he's your legs and you can take that anywhere you want. You can dress up in any kind of clothes you like. You can be a jumper, dressage rider, trail rider, cowboy, anything.

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!

Most people don't realize how little it takes to get a horse to move.

You can't make something happen with a horse, but you can fix things up and let it happen.

With the horses, you can't let them call the shot part of the time and then you call the shot part of the time. They're not really designed to be your leader, but they can be a great partner, but you need to lead, and they need to respect you and respond with respect. Don't think of respect as a dirty word. You need to respect them as well.

I take the horsemanship very seriously and I treat it with the same integrity that one would any of the fine arts.

I realized that there are some things about all of us, no matter where we're from, that connects us as humans. We're looking for the same sorts of contentment in our lives and while some people are searching a little harder than others, we're not all that different.

If I heard it once, I've heard it a thousand times from Ray Hunt. He said 'make the wrong thing difficult and the right thing easy'. Then he said 'but don't make the wrong thing impossible'. Well ... you learn from making mistakes. It's that simple.

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.

There's an ancient bond that still exists today between horses and humans, it is even there with people that have never ridden a horse or been around horses. The horse is what settled the entire west. If it weren't for the horse they'd probably be only a couple hundred miles from where they started. A lot of people don't realize how much they owe the horse because it's not so much a part of our culture right now as it used to be.

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.

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

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.

I started to realize that things would come much easier for me once I learned why a horse does what he does. This method works well for me because of the kinship that develops between horse and rider.

And for a lot of people, they want it all to be fuzzy and warm and cosmic, but it's no different with a horse than with a kid ... You can't always be the kid's best friend. First you have to be the parent.

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.

There are no problem horses, only problem riders.

Some guys make their careers off one horse; kind of a trick horse, a wonder horse. I'm not knocking that, but for me I'm trying to get better and study. That means taking out new horses. It's a life study. When I've finished a horse, I turn him out and basically stop riding him, except taking him to the occasional branding so I can enjoy him.

They say nerves heal real slowly. Lots of things about us heal real slowly.

There is something in the human psyche that there is a connection between horses and humans, a real special kind of a thing, and I guess it's always been there. I hope it will always be there, I hope we don't evolve past that.

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.

When riding, ask yourself what will my horse get out of it if I get what I want? Many times, human nature is to take and to not give anything back.

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

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.

Don't get on a horse that's moving.

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.

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.