Tuesday, November 4, 2008

Tagged---I'm it!

EquineMine has tagged me to go to page 56 and find the 5th sentence of a book I have lying around and go on a bit about it. I am working my way through this book of Monty Roberts who has been pegged as one of the original "horse whisperers." I enjoy his writings along with the writings of Tom Dorrance and Buck Brannaman. On page 56, Roberts is talking about round pens of the Old West.

"The round pen was the classroom for "traditional horse breaking." Horses were restrained, blindfolded and broken to submission.
It goes on to say, "You could call it a kindergarten of sorts for those untrained animals who needed to learn how to comply with the wishes of man."
"I remember seeing a roundpen in Nevada, where an old rancher had created a tradition of painting black and white crosses on the planks. The white crosses were for cowboys who died; the black crosses were for horses."

I simply can't comprehend it. I am so thankful that their are folks who have been able to turn the ways of thinking towards training to a more humane, effective pursuit for all involved. I will not lie and say I haven't seen brutality in training methods here in Texas, but the vast majority of the cowboys (and gals) I have met are wonderful with their horses. OK, I'm tagged out! Don't really have any followers or peeps to tag, so if anyone reads this and would like to have a go, have fun!

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