Want to develop a solid partnership with your horse?  Teach him practical skills like loading in a trailer without fuss?  The author teaches you how to really understand your horse and handle him safely.

• Three keys to maintaining a horse’s respect
• How to tell if your horse has a physical problem that’s causing him to act up

PUBLISHER’S COMMENTS

Powell’s clinics have received rave reviews from attendees.

REVIEWS

 “This book should be required reading for both professionals and amateurs in all riding disciplines” (Jane Savoie)

AUTHOR’S COMMENTS

Almost a Whisper is the result of over forty years spent observing and studying the horse culture. Its purpose is to teach you, the reader, to take a more holistic approach to working with your equine friends. After reading it, I hope you will consider all aspects of horse ownership—from knowing a horse’s mind to effectively managing his pasture—with the horse’s natural viewpoint in mind. I hope that when you go to buy a saddle you will not just look at the pretty saddle on the tack shop rack but at how that saddle will fit and work for your particular horse. When you have a horse problem I want you to think it through from the horse’s standpoint and give him the time to understand exactly what you want from him. That is what this book is about: helping you see the whole picture from the horse’s point of view.

                Almost a Whisper is designed to be read slowly, thoughtfully, and all the way through front to back. If you skip around you will miss important concepts on which other concepts are built. As you begin to put these methods to work, be patient and reward every minuscule attempt your horse makes to do it right. Remember: A journey of a thousand miles begins with a single step.

                Happy whispering!                                                                                               

                Sam Powell,  July 1999

TABLE OF CONTENTS

Acknowledgments

Foreword

Introduction

Chapter 1

     Man Versus Horse: A Cultural Experience

Chapter 2

     Horse Whispering: Understanding the Language of the Horse

Chapter 3

     Respect and Trust: Laying the Relationship Foundation

Chapter 4

     Teaching and Training: Understanding the Basics

Chapter 5

     Horseman or Trainer: Which One for You?

Chapter 6

     Pet, Slave, or Companion: Which One for Your Horse?

Chapter 7

     Troubleshooting: Eliminating the Cause of the Problem

Chapter 8

     Commonly Asked Questions

Afterword

Sources of Information

About the Author

Index

EXCERPT

from CHAPTER 1

Man Versus Horse

A Cultural Experience

My father and I drove for two days to reach Montgomery Pass in the Inyo Mountains, the last sigh of the Sierra Nevadas before they collapse and tumble down toward Death Valley and the scorched Mojave wastelands. We drove across stark deserts under blistering suns and crystal starlight. We crossed powerful rivers I had only read about and refueled in nameless small towns swallowed up by isolation. I was only fifteen years old at the time and had no way of knowing that the journey would one day change my life.

                The lure of Montgomery Pass was the wild horses that ran free in its canyons. I wanted to be a cowboy—to learn all about horses—so my father took me to a place where the animals lived by primal instincts and obeyed no command except the silent dictates of survival.

                I had never met my father until that summer. He and my mother separated before I was born. He left Oklahoma and ended up in Scottsdale, Arizona. I didn’t know much about him except that he was a cowboy. That was what I wanted to be, so I saved up a few bucks from working odd jobs after school and hopped a Greyhound bus from Bartlesville, Oklahoma, to Phoenix, Arizona. I didn’t tell anyone I was going; I just left in search of the one person I figured could teach me how to be a cowboy.

                It was the strangest meeting of my life. I called my dad from the Phoenix bus station, and when he walked in we recognized each other immediately. Perhaps it was because we were both wearing cowboy hats and boots, but I knew he was my father and he knew I was his son.

                Dad worked for a place called the Judson School where he took care of the horses that were part of the curriculum. He was a great horseman. One of his favorite activities was to put a pack on one horse, saddle another one, and ride off into the desert—sometimes for a few hours, sometimes for a few days. Back then you could ride from Scottsdale north towards Sedona and not get into any traffic. He did that a lot.

                Dad and I talked for several days and I told him that I wanted to learn about horses. He said that he could teach me, but that he wasn’t a man given to much talk. He had tremendous patience, the kind that comes from spending time with yourself in places where clocks don’t matter much. His method of teaching leaned more toward observation rather than lecture.

                When we got to Montgomery Pass we camped out on a ridge overlooking a canyon the wild horses had claimed as their turf. “Watch,” my father said. For two or three days he hardly said anything more.

                Dad stayed busy around the campsite cooking, cleaning, gathering wood for the fire, and keeping his distance from me. I sat for hours on end staring at the horses below without knowing exactly what I was looking for. “What am I supposed to do?” I asked him more than once.

                “Just watch,” was his only reply.

                “But I want to learn how to train horses,” I pleaded.

                “Watch,” he repeated.

                In time it dawned on me. The horses could teach me more than he could, at least for now. The hours and days I spent observing the magnificent creatures took on more meaning and I watched them with a newly discovered enthusiasm.

                After several days we loaded our gear into Dad’s pickup truck and drove back to Scottsdale. I wasn’t sure what I had learned or how it would help me be a cowboy. Dad drove most of the way back in silence so I had plenty of time to think about it, but it took nearly thirty years for me to completely figure it out.

                When I did figure out what I had learned in those early years, all of my knowledge about horses began to sort itself into a philosophy that applies just as well to people as it does to horses. I began to see the horse as I never had before, and he became something of a parable, a prism through which humanity is refracted. He showed himself as much more than just an animal, but as a being with wants, needs and desires much the same as those of humans. He emerged as part of a culture with a way of life inherently his own. A culture is made up of a group of beings that form a society. The culture of the group dictates how they live and how they raise their young. The ways of the entire group impart certain characteristics common to each individual in the group. It is possible to identify a cultural background by noting certain behaviors common to that particular culture. Observing the horse culture entails studying how horses live in their own society as its own separate entity and how they interact with each other. It means observing their way of life and their belief system and studying it from the horse’s point of view. It also involves looking at the entire world as it pertains to the horse rather than to humans.

                Whenever science wants to know more about a certain culture they send a team of researchers into that culture to live among the people and study their way of life. The researchers study their system of beliefs, the manner in which they raise their young, and how they interact with the world and each other. Once we are able to comprehend the instincts, customs and beliefs that differ from our own, then it is much easier to achieve communication, patience, tolerance, and understanding.

                Dad tried to teach me that the horse’s way of life is based on instinct—that they deal with people on an instinctive level—and he was right. Even today horses live almost purely by instinct. Their instincts to breed, to avoid harm or discomfort, and to dominate or trust the dominant herd member have been ingrained in them for thousands of years. Though the times are changing rapidly, for the most part the horse is not.

                Throughout the pages of this book I will be mostly concerned with the horse’s brain. It is virtually the same in all horses regardless of breed, color, or whatever other terms and methods humans have routinely used to categorize them. For this reason the information contained throughout the pages of this book will be just as relevant fifty years from now as it is today. I want to present a more holistic approach to working with your horse, a way to use what comes natural to him to achieve the results you desire and to use your mind to work with his mind.