"How you doing there, buddy?" "See, that feels good, doesn't it, huh?" "All right, well, I'm off to the office." "To start off, are there any of you that have any particular problems you'd like to tell me about?" "Don't be bashful." "You're among friends." "Whoa, whoa, whoa." "Let him be, 'cause he's learning how to kind of settle in with you." "A lot of times, rather than helping people with horse problems," "I'm helping horses with people problems." "And for a lot of people, they want it all to be fuzzy and warm and cosmic, but it is 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." "A horse like this isn't any different than a kid that takes everybody's milk money on the way to school, beats up old people." "Maybe it isn't the kid's fault." "Maybe the parent ought to be in jail." "Boy, do you feel like a fool and kind of like a failure." " You know?" " Aw, it's all right." "People bring a lot of baggage to the table when they come to these." "Sometimes they're here for a different reason other than just getting to where they can ride their horse a little bit better." "If you find a way to fit this thing right here, it'll make you better." "It'll make you better in areas that you didn't think related to horses." "Good job, buddy." "Horses are my life, and because of some of the things" "I've been through as a kid," "I found some safety and some companionship in the horses." "I was just looking for kind of a peaceful place to be where I wasn't threatened, where my life wasn't threatened." "So I have an empathy for horses that when something is scared for their life," "I understand that." "He's a pretty nice horse, six years old." "Making some good progress, anyway." "Just a youngster, just telling him..." "I want him to be aware of me." "If I slow down, I want him to slow down." "See, if I go like this..." "I have to practice my old man walk." "So when I'm really old, it might take me an hour to get over there." "He ought to be able to just go with me, as slow as I want to go, and not crowd me." "Might be a little slower than what he'd like to go." "If I stop, he ought to stop." "If I go back, he ought to go back, and I ought not to have to beg him." "Right now, I walk at a little faster pace, but I'm always testing him to see if he's with me." "When I first seen him, I thought," ""What kind of voodoo stuff is this, you know?" "How are you getting this done, you know?"" "He walks into a round pen." "In five minutes, he's got a horse following him around like a dog." "He and I go together." "Most of us have a bag of tricks, and Buck has an arsenal." "Hey, boys." "Morning." "Hello, how you doing?" " Good." " Good." "Colt starting is always interesting because most of the youngsters have never been saddled, never had anyone on their back or a bit in their mouth." "So there is a lot of fear in both the horse and the human." "The way I do these colt classes, you guys, you'll have to get them exposed to a lot of things that seem perfectly normal to you, but it doesn't seem normal to the horse." "You walk up to them smelling like a Big Mac, you know, or something..." "Your diet is gonna make you smell different to the horse, and then you're gonna tell the horse," ""Don't worry." "I want to crawl on you..."" "In a similar posture to how a lion would attack and kill a horse." "They jump right up in the middle of them, and they reach their front claws around, and as they're biting down on their spine, they're cutting their throat with their claws." "You're asking the horse to let you be in that posture and crawl on him." "And then about the time he says, "All right, maybe,"" "and then you say, "Oh, oh, one more thing." ""I want to strap some hides of other dead animals around you before I crawl on you."" "You damn sure have to have some trust." "He's got to believe in you to let you do that, and amazingly enough, they'll let you do it." "Now, the first thing that I'm gonna show you is leading the horse by." "Step in here." "Extend the front over like that." "Then he'll go on forward around me." "This takes some practice to get good at." "Your horse might be afraid to move." "It's a real trust thing between the two of you." "What's your name, dear?" "Martha?" "Okay, Martha, you want to go the other way." "You got your horse leading by good, just the wrong direction." "That's all right." "Tap her." "Don't be afraid of tapping her with that flag." "You aren't gonna hurt her." "It would be like you getting spanked with a sock." "There, yeah." "Dave, lead with the right hand." "Yeah, it's in your left hand." "The other left." "Walk to the hip." "No, walk to the hip." "You're at the head." "That's the eating end." "This is always a hard one for folks." "Pam, that walking on you." "Now, your horse is kind of naughty." "You guys make a big old circle around me." "This horse, it knows to get away, 'cause she's pretty fearful." "No, you won't get away." "She said, "I thought I had the angle on you there."" "See that head slinging to the outside?" "That's unacceptable." "But she doesn't know the difference." "She said, "Well, up to this point," "I've had some pretty damn good luck with that technique."" "See there where she went to run me over?" "That means she's trying to protect herself." "But when I get done," "I will not have to close my hand on the end of this rope." "Now, I'd touch her here on the neck." "I'd say, "You find out this flag won't hurt you." "Nobody's here to hurt you."" "One of the things that really struck me was that you always grow up hearing about breaking horses or breaking broncos or something." "There's a whole element of abuse, really, of, it's... man is stronger than this big animal." "We can break them down almost like Parris Island and a drill instructor, and I think it first clicked for me with Buck at the whole concept of starting." "My early exposure to horses was severe:" "Tying horses to posts with an inner tube tire so that when the horse pulled back, they would slam back into the post." "It was really brutal, really, truly brutal." "It was heartbreaking." "I didn't know any different." "I was a child." "But I remember crying a lot." "I felt very, very bad for the animals." "So when I met Buck, I was the instant convert." "You can't be a good guy when you leave the barn and a bad guy when you get to the barn." "And if I treat animals this way, do I treat people that way too?" "We all know the answer to that." "I met Buck probably at his first clinic that he gave." "If I wasn't at his first clinic, I was probably at his second." "There was a nice change." "And the first time I saw was amazing to me." "L..." "I... it just blew my mind." "It just blew my mind that it could be done in a way that the horse would cooperate, like the people, and not be scarred up and afraid for life." "I couldn't believe what that man could do with a horse without anything on it." "I mean, he could load horses in a horse trailer without touching them." "I mean, it... the horse has never been in a trailer." "That's phenomenal." "Why let an animal live in fear?" "Why not fix it?" "That's pretty good." "You notice how I don't have to have a death grip on the doggone lead rope now." "In this particular discipline, if you want to be great, you have to be a sensitive person." "That vulnerability, that sensitivity to feel the subtle change is what makes you great." "That's why so many of the folks that are really good at this are... you know, sometimes they're tortured souls, you know?" "I've seen some kind of dark things in my life, but everybody has a bit of a burden to bear of some sort, so it's all relative." "It's all I ever wanted to be was a cowboy." "I grew up as a trick roper." "That wasn't necessarily by choice, but the first thing is, we were entertainers, my brother and I." "I started doing rope tricks when I was three years old." "You wouldn't think that a three-year-old could be doing rope tricks, but I was doing rope tricks." "I turned professional when I was six." "And as far as I know, we are still the youngest kids to ever get a PRCA card, which it was the RCA in those days," "Rodeo Cowboy Association." "And we went to fairs and rodeos and performed all over." "But we really enjoyed the attention of the crowds." "We were kind of childhood celebrities, you know." "We were the Kellogg's Sugar Pops kids." "You know, fancy roping takes hard work, plenty of sleep, and good nutrition every day." "Here's a good hardworking breakfast." "Oh, it must have been 1970, '71, right around in there." "It was just before my mom passed away." "That was quite a thing." "And all I remember about that commercial, it should have been real fun, 'cause it was a big thrill to all the kids in school that we were on national television doing these TV commercials." "All I really remember about that is that my dad beat us unmercifully for not putting on a perfect performance, and then he drove us home, and, heck, he couldn't even wait till we got home." "He stopped and knocked on us a little bit more." "I remember my mom would drop us off at school." "The last couple of years she was alive, she was working as a waitress in Ennis, Montana, and I would beg her not to leave, and every day, I would cry;" "Every day, she would cry, because I was just terrified of the fact that I was gonna be five or six hours alone with our dad when we got home from school before my mom would get home," "'cause things always went better when she was around." "But then when my mom died," "I knew my life was over as I knew it, and I no longer had my protector." "Well, after my mom passed away, my dad really fell apart, and night after night after night, he would come yank us out of the bed in the middle of the night and make us sit at this kitchen table, this oak table." "I could draw the grain in that table for you to this day, 'cause you'd just stare down at the table, because even to just look at my dad when he was ranting and raving in a drunken stupor," "he would take that as an aggressive expression." "And one night, I just said," ""I'm not gonna get beat up again tonight." "I'm just..." "I can't do it."" "And I made a mad dash outside and not thinking about the fact that I wasn't very well-dressed for being outside in the middle of the winter, 'cause it was cold." "It was somewhere between 10, 20 below zero." "Well, damn, then I was really stuck, because I knew if I went back inside, he was gonna beat me half to death, and I just couldn't go back in." "I just couldn't." "We had a dog, and his name was Duke, and I loved that dog." "It sounds real trailer park, I know, but he lived in a 55-gallon barrel with straw in it for his bed, and I crawled in that 55-gallon barrel with that bloodhound." "It wasn't warm, but it kept me from freezing, and I finally, after two or three hours, went back in the house, and he just looked at me like, "Where you been?"" "Reata, I can't believe you answered your phone." "Where are you?" "Oh, cool." "What are you doing?" "For your mom or for school?" "For school." "All right, well, I'll call her back, and then I'll talk to you tomorrow, huh?" "Okay, sounds good." "Okay, love you, buddy." "Bye." "I was watching Oprah." "I don't know if I should admit to that." "But I was watching Oprah, and she said that the greatest aphrodisiac there was for a man was to have a vacuum and to actually run it in the presence of his wife." "So she knows quite a bit, so I thought, "Well, I'll..." "it can't hurt."" "You know, you never know where you're gonna get some information." "Hey, you." "Gonna put the smaller one in the back." "There's not quite as much room." "We got 27 years in now." "Yeah, 27 years." "I get to where I don't even worry about what day it is." "All I know is, it's just all in four-day intervals for me." "I don't know; you get in a rhythm by doing this, and you... oh, after just a few days of being somewhere, you're kind of ready to go to the next one." "Hey, Mary, it's just me." "Good." "What are you doing?" "Got the clinic done here." "Didn't make anybody cry." "Talk to you later on." "All right, Mary, I miss you." "I do this 40 weeks out of the year." "For the rest of the year, you could say," ""Where are you gonna be on such and such a day?"" "And I could tell you exactly where I'm gonna be till about Thanksgiving." "Walkertown, North Carolina." "Huntsville, Alabama." "Limerick, Maine." "Bay Harbor, Michigan." "Cedar Rapids, Iowa." "Longmont, Colorado." "Thermopolis, Wyoming." "Bend, Oregon." "Bozeman, Montana." "Libby, Montana." "Yeah, there's some loneliness." "You know, it's truck stops and driving late at night and just trying to get to your next spot, and you're alone, you know?" "That's when you really miss your family, and you want to be home, and you think of what it would be like just walking barefoot across the living room and going to bed." "But there is no way that's ever gonna be anything other than what it is." " How are you?" " Hey, how are you?" "She's gonna make me a Manhattan." "And I can make more than one if somebody wants one." "They're in the back." "Were you at that clinic in Ellensburg when it was so cold, when Bob Blackwell..." "Yeah, that was 17 years ago." "That was my first clinic with you." "And they brought them in, these horses in, in stock trailers, literally." "They opened up the door, and they went into the round pen, and there was 15 or 17 colts, and he roped every one of them." "A mutual friend invited me, and I was pretty skeptical about the clinic and the approach." "And I went pretty convinced that I wasn't gonna appreciate anything that I saw." "And then he started working with all these babies..." "And I was blown away." "I mean, I couldn't believe what I saw and the rapport that he had with them." "You know, it just kind of stopped me in my tracks." "My whole life has been encompassed around Arabian and half-Arabian show horses from the time I was a little girl." "I was showing horses and thinking that everything was cool, the way I was doing things and the way I saw things being done, and I'm proud of a lot of those prizes that I won, but I'm equally ashamed of a lot of them too." "Horses are put into forced positions that they're neither mentally or physically prepared to handle, and these practices aren't used nearly as much now as they were years ago, but the horses would be put into hock hobbies" "that would go from the hocks up through the snaffle and back down so that every time he took a step with his hocks, you know, it'd take ahold of his face to teach him to stay into that real infixed position." "But there's no connection for the horse." "There's no understanding of that except for it hurts." "So they're gonna stay away from those pressures and learn to infix themselves into those positions because... through intimidation." "And I just thought that that's the way you did it." "And that's what the horses had to do to be show horses, and you don't realize how unjust it is until you... until someone shows you a different path." "Come on." "Let's say the horse needed you to be firm." "There's a difference between firm and hard." "Let's say I needed to take ahold of the horse with 20 pounds." "The way I go about getting to 20 pounds is gonna have a lot to do with whether you're successful or not." "Hold on to that." "I'm gonna pull on you some, so don't let me get it away from you." "Okay, so close your hand on that, or it's gonna come away from you, and don't give to me." "Let's say I needed to pull on this horse about that hard." "The way I took ahold of you wasn't really offensive, wouldn't make you afraid." "But let's say I was abrupt and had hands like a butcher and I took ahold of the horse like that." "Now, I'm pulling about like what I said, but it's how I got there." "Be ready." "It's how I got there that could be rude to the horse." "Now, watch Robert closely." "I'm just riding with bad hands." "Oh, you braced." "I didn't hit you." "Why'd you do that?" "He's protecting himself." "Once I've done this a few times with him, he'll brace all the time like that." "See him brace?" "You can't help yourself." "And I'm even telling you you're gonna do it, and you still can't help it." "But if I took ahold like this, you might give to me, and then I'd give to you." "But it's the way I go about it, and whenever you're ready, maybe you'd give to me, see." "Otherwise I'll just wait here." "Nobody's gonna get any lunch today." "When you started to soften, so did I, and you both feel together." "If you were real sensitive to me when I feel of you here, you'd already be giving, see?" "That means something to my horse." "That's what a soft feel... that's what I do to get a soft feel right there." "And I want you to get at least a mental picture of what a horse operating on a feel is to where hopefully it looks good to you, that you'll want that, that you'll strive for that." "So this is one example of a feel, see." "I could even take on this rope right here like this, see." "That's operating on a feel, see." "I could do this and say, "Get back."" "And I could do this and say, "Get over."" "Without touching him, your energy moves the horse." "Most people think of a feel as when you touch something or someone and what it feels like to your fingers, but a feel can have a thousand different definitions." "Sometimes feel is a mental thing." "Sometimes feel can happen clear across the arena." "That's what I'm looking for there." "Sort of an invitation from the horse to come to you." "It's not always physical." "Sometimes it's mental." "When you have the physical working for you 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." "I'm looking for the horse to learn how to follow a feel." "It's supposed to take that much." "Little bit more." "There." "Left, right, left, right, left, right." "Everything is a dance." "Everything you do with a horse is a dance." "Now I'll open him up a little bit here." "Problem is, when a lot of folks can't get a horse to operate on a feel, they'll get a little more bridle, get a little more shank on it, drive a spur through the horse's shoulder," "then tie his head down, then get a bicycle chain over his nose." "I mean, it doesn't stop." "It becomes medieval." "Now, I'm gonna tip the life up in him here." "We're moving on a feel." "You know, a horse is pretty sensitive." "A horse can feel a mosquito land on their butt in a windstorm." "Every movement you make on a horse, there is a perfect position of balance that takes no energy from the horse." "He doesn't feel like he is pushing you along with him or dragging you along with him." "He's built to fit a horse, you know?" "God had him in mind when he made a cowboy, you know?" "I've never actually seen him whisper a horse, but I guess if there's a horse whisperer out there, it's Buck Brannaman." "I don't know, you know?" "Originally, I got connected to The Horse Whisperer through Nick Evans, and he said," ""I'm researching some characters for my book, and I'm trying to find a way to bring this character to life."" "And I was doing a clinic in California, and kind of a hippie-looking guy came up, and he said," ""I'm a movie producer."" "He said, "I was wondering if you could meet with me and Bob."" "I said, "Bob?"" "In my business, artificiality is part of the business." "You look for authentic people." "And so when I met Buck, my first thought was, "Well, what the hell is this?"" "Guy walks into an office in Santa Monica." "He's got a big hat on." "He's got his vest and so forth." "He looks like he's got a costume on, and I thought "Oh, my God, you know, what's"..." "And his compatriot who was with him, the same outfit, and I thought," ""Oh, jeez, what have I gotten into here?"" "And then the etiquette, the politeness, the humanity that kind of came off real quick kind of erased that, and then we sat in the office for about an hour and a half and talked about things that were authentic," "and so I realized that I was really dealing with what I would call "the real deal."" "No-nonsense guy, no-nonsense, you know, whether with the animal or people." "He was an advisor that I brought on that slowly worked his way into the core of the filmmaking because he just knew more." "So Buck contributed everything as a model and also as a player." "I used him as a double." "So he was a huge part of the fabric of the film, and he was able to do things that the hired trainer could not do." "There was a scene that Scarlett was supposed to go into the stall with the horse, and it was her first time being near the horse since the accident, and the action for the horse was, he was supposed to sort of paw the ground" "and show a little aggression and then come to her and respond to her and more or less put his head in her arms, and it was an, "Aw, gee," a real touching scene," "and they couldn't get the shot because the horse was a trick horse, and they are trained to not take their eyes off the trainer." "The horse nuzzled the wood." "The horse nuzzled the frame." "The horse nuzzled the boots of the trainer but wouldn't nuzzle Scarlett." "The meter was ticking, and, you know, time is money and all that stuff." "So I was going into a panic." "They said, "What are we gonna do?"" "I said, "What do you mean, what are you gonna do?"" "He said, "Well, we never got that shot."" "I said, "Yeah, we sure spent a long time at it too."" "He said, "Yeah, eight hours." "You got any ideas?"" "I said, "Yeah, why don't we use my horse, Pet?"" "And at first, everybody said," ""Well, you know, you don't understand, Buck." ""You know, we use Hollywood trick horses for this" ""because they're performers," ""and they can do things on the mark" ""so we can pull a focus on a certain place," ""and you just don't understand that." ""We don't... not downplaying your thing, Buck," ""but it's like... but Pet," ""he doesn't know how to work on a mark." "He's not an actor."" "I said, "No, he's a horse."" "I said, "What do you have to lose?"" "So I dinked around with my horse and got him where I could lead him by front foot with a rope on him, and I got him where I could jiggle that rope, and he'd paw the ground on the mark." "So he came up, and he just put his head right in her chest, and she wrapped her arms around that horse, laid her head on his forehead, and everybody was crying." "God, within 15, 20 minutes, it was done." "So Buck played a greater role than a lot of people realize." "He contributed everything." "There was a humanity and a kind of gentleness of spirit that I adopted for that character because of Buck." "When I saw the finished product, he looked good." "I told him, "There is some potential there, Bob," ""if this movie thing doesn't work out for you." ""I think I could probably get you to where you could make a living doing this."" "This one you want me to take right here?" "Yeah." "Okay, Reata." "I might have you check on Charro and see if he's eaten." "Okay." "I've been traveling with Dad during the summers, usually from end of June till end of August." "It's been two months since I've seen my dad." "My dad's on the road nine months out of the year, and it's tough, but I'm kind of used to it now." "I mean, I've been doing it since I was... well, forever, so..." "Heads up." "We've got a few sacks of feed to schlep across here." "Reata, you and Nevada need to go wrap up all the sound." "Yeah, Nevada's going with me." "My partner in crime." "I just started traveling with them last year." "I spent a month with them." "I think we're helpful to a point." "Sometimes maybe we're in the way, 'cause he has, like, a way of doing things, you know?" "What are you doing?" "Bringing you breakfast." " What is it?" " Sticky buns." "I might just have one." "I don't want the..." "That'll do me." "Thanks, mate." "So I guess you got a lot of songs transferred for me on my iPod." "Traveling with Dad, it can get pretty stressful sometimes just because he is, like, a travel Nazi." "Make sure you plug that little deal... give me that." "'Cause he has his own way of how he does everything, and we kind of mess up the process sometimes." "Aw, Reata." "Aw, you put the top on backwards." "But then when it comes to, like, cleaning pens and saddling his horses and stuff like that," "I think he kind of appreciates us." "How'd you do?" "Nasty." " Hey, Reata." " Yeah." "Bring me back a sack for trash when you... after you feed." "Sure." "I ride every summer." "I usually take one of my horses." "Step up in here and get a daily on and stop my horse." "I get a lot..." "I learn a lot on it." "Every clinic that we go to during the summer is different." "The horses are different, different people." "There, you followed by feel." "The horse world can be pretty cliquey." "Well, we don't go for cliques around here." "There are probably some people here that it's just pittance, pocket change for them to come, and some of them save all year long just to be able to go to this clinic." "Put on my Madonna microphone." "How we fixed here, Maggie?" "You getting his chin down a little bit?" "You want to release as quick as you can." "He's gonna give in a second." "There, there." "Pet him." "That's the way." "My daughter, she had a hard time releasing." "I'd say, "Reata, your arms," and she'd go like that." "Spread your hands a little more." "Get them a little lower." "There you go." "Nice." "You want that horse to be an extension of you, but then you don't control your legs." "You think you're just gonna control this part of the body." "This is a body." "The whole thing is a body." "If all of you didn't have a horse here and I was trying to talk to you, wouldn't that be weird if you said," ""Hey, I don't have control of my legs."" "All of a sudden, they just tear off, and you're like, "Oh, jeez, sorry."" "Waiting on the coffee." "He's got to have his coffee." "Black, I'm sure that comes as a big surprise." "He has the coffee, and then he lets down, and it kind of smooths out." "Going to Sheridan, Montana." "Sheridan, Montana, is there, and we're up here, probably seven hours." "Not too long." "Yeah, it's a great bunch of folks at this clinic." " Good to see you." " Good to see you." "Welcome to Montana." "A lot of them, I've known since I was a kid." "Some of them, I went to school with." "Some of them, I went to school with their parents." "It's like... it's coming home for me here." "It's gonna be a busy week, 'cause Mom's gonna be in Sheridan." "Hi." "How are you?" "I'm good." "How are you?" "I haven't seen Mary for a couple of months." "Hi, Dally." "Hi, buddy." "So it's been an awful long run." "Mary, she doesn't like to travel as much, but I'd sure like her to go with me a little bit more, and she may go with me a little bit more once Reata goes off to college." "So this is Twyla, Rudy." "This is Dally." " Oh, Dally." " Hey, Rudy." "Rudy's grown a little bit since I left." "I don't know how many dogs you need before you have enough dogs." "They worked their way up the food chain past me, but my wife loves them, and I love my wife, so if it makes her happy... makes me happy." "I actually do like traveling on the road." "It's fun." "It's really fun." "I mean, you get to meet a lot of different people and see a lot of different beautiful places." "Like, this place is amazing." "But I like staying home too, though." "Okay, are there any of you that have any real problems with them that you'd like to kind of mention?" "He runs me over." "He runs you over?" "Okay, lovely." "Well, a baby like that, they're not trying to be pushy." "They might be sort of crowding you just a little bit because they still might be scared." "They kind of think that maybe if they get real close to you, they'll get some comfort." "And the big thing, you guys, is, don't be overly critical of them, 'cause they're just babies." "If he feels like you're angry at him at all, he will shut down." "I don't know where Buck draws his real personal strength from, because he's lived through a lot." "I mean, it..." "He came out of such dire straits and, you know, was virtually, I think, plucked from his home in the middle of the night sort of a thing." "It's a real hard story to tell, 'cause, you know, you see him now, and, you know, I don't even think about that." "Ace was real hard on those boys." "You knew there was something wrong there maybe, but you weren't for sure what." "You know, he kept it hid pretty well, I guess, until the point when Coach Cleverly..." "You know, seen his back." "Ah, that's a hard story to think about." "Bob Cleverly was a typical football coach that you loved but feared too, you know, and he'd actually made Buck shower in PE, and when he didn't want to shower, you know, and he told him to, you know, get undressed" "and get in the shower, you know, as soon as Buck started taking his shirt off, he seen the whip marks, and the thing of it is, is, you know, he just basically told him," "he said, "Your dad will never beat you again." "I'll make sure of that," you know." "And then that's when Johnny France kind of started the ball rolling to get Buck and Smokie to a safe place." "I was present when the boys were forced to disrobe, and on their legs and their little buttocks were these big whip marks where their dad had beat them." "When I looked at these little boys, I said," ""No, we'll have none of that."" "I took them to the Shirleys." "They were two frightened little boys, but it wasn't too long before the two boys were just... they just turned into Shirleys." "My mom had... had just died." "And she was very loving, wasn't she?" " Yeah." " She was a very loving lady." "So she became my new mom, and, boy, that was something I really needed." "Sleep good?" "I did." "They have a wonderful relationship, and she's a guiding force." "May God bless you and watch over you." "There's no sense that," ""Okay, you're raised." "You're gone."" "I mean, she's their mother." "She's truly their mother, and I think Betsy raised something like 23 foster sons." "I mean, all boys, all boys." "When our kids were little, it was like a zoo, and it was every man for himself and survival of the fittest." "My motto that's stood me in good stead is," ""Blessed are the flexible, for they shall not get bent out of shape."" "My foster dad taught me how to shoe horses." "I was 12 years old." "When I first went to live with them, he told me, "Kid, you might not ever amount to much," ""but you better learn how to ride a colt and shoe a horse." ""And then you'll always be able to eat." ""Even if you can't get much of a job, you'll always be able to eat."" "So he taught me how to shoe a horse over a period of time." "There were so many things that I learned while I was with my foster parents." "When I first got dropped off at the Shirley ranch," "I was so terrified of men, and my foster-dad-to-be, he pulled in in the truck, and, gee, he was tall, 6'4", just looked like he was made out of rawhide and barbwire." "But he walked right up to me, and he said," ""You must be Buck,"" "and I shook his hand, but I couldn't even speak." "It's real; you can be so scared that you can't say anything." "No words come out." "I just sat there, and my little knees were just about knocking together." "I was a little guy." "And then he spun around, walked back to the truck, and opened the door, and my heart just stopped." "Because it's almost like a colt that's had some trouble." "You don't have to do too much to make them suspicious, just even move in a little bit of a way that they don't understand or can't comprehend, and that quick, they... they think they need to save themselves." "So when he went back to that truck and opened the door," "I didn't know what to do." "Scared me to death." "He came back, and he threw me a pair of buckskin gloves." "He said, "Here."" "He said, "You're gonna need them,"" "and, gee, they were just beautiful, and they fit me perfect." "I was so proud of them." "And he looked over at the ranch truck, and he said, "Get in."" "So we got in, and he always had fencing tools in the truck." "So we took off, and we built fence all afternoon, pounding steel posts into rocks and pulling wire, but I wouldn't wear those gloves." "There was just that..." "that token act of kindness, just giving me something like that." "Oh, gee, it meant so much." "I didn't want to get them all tore up, so I kept them in my pocket, and I just worked with the barbwire with my bare hands." "And he realized that I didn't need someone to just pity me for what I'd been through." "He knew I just needed something to do." "I needed a job to do." "And that's when things started to head in the right direction for me." "So I learned that about the horses years later." "I thought, "Oh, yeah." ""That's kind of what Forrest did with me, come to think of it."" "You see the expression on that horse?" "It moves, but he's crabby." "Flagging the tail, it's annoyed." "It's like asking your kid to go take the garbage out." "They take the garbage out, but they flip you the bird on the way out of the room." "It's without respect, and respect isn't fear." "It's acceptance." "He bucks whenever I saddle him... not when I saddle him but when I get him to go through transitions." "I've never started a colt ever in my life." "I've always been around really well-broke ones." "So this is my first shot at it." "And he's got a little bit of Buck in him." "So you must be Bill." "I am Bill." "That's why I asked Bill Seaton to ride him, 'cause Chief needs a confident rider for that first ride." "I bought Chief about a year and a half ago." "He was one." "He had never had any human contact." "Born out in the field, wasn't touched, handled, nothing." "It's just a rodeo and disaster waiting to happen." "It's not his fault." "He's like a kid that just didn't have any good parenting." "He just doesn't know what's to be expected of him." "I want to check your horse out." "If you're gonna do anything shocking," "I'd rather you did the shocking stuff right here than when you're on their back." "Right here." "Step over." "He says, "Well, I prefer you beg me."" "Not a chance." "There's the good deal offered." "There's not so good a deal." "That's the thing with a horse." "You can't just love on them and buy lots of carrots." "Bribery doesn't work with horses." "No different than trying to bribe a kid." "All it does is make a contemptuous, spoiled horse." "But you don't want them afraid of you." "You can be strict, but you don't need to be unfair, and like I say, it's not personal." "I don't feel any different about him than I do my own horse I just stepped off." "We're not mad at you." "One of the biggest challenges of a horseman is, is to be able to control your emotions, because a person might be quick to get all mad." "There you go." "That's better." "Let's go this way." "I said that way." "You allow a horse to make mistakes." "The horse will learn from mistakes no different than the human." "But you can't get him to where he dreads making mistakes for fear of what's gonna happen after he does." "Sometimes I'll just move this flag around, and I don't want him to be afraid of it." "I'm saying just live with that." "Now we'll start again." "There's a change." "Attaboy." "Buck says when you start handling horses, your own personal issues start coming out." "And I was so anxious to see the saddle on Chief," "I rushed him to it, and now I've built..." "I feel like I've built this fear and this insecurity in him." "But see, I'm an insecure person, so they..." "horses, they mirror you." "They can't lie." "There." "Good boy." "Horsemanship, fine horsemanship, becomes a way of life." "It's not about controlling the horses." "It becomes how you treat your spouse, how you treat strangers." "Will you give people a chance, just like you give the horses a chance?" "It becomes how you discipline your children." "You know, you can discipline and discourage, or you can discipline and encourage." "You can say, "I see you tried that." "What do you think you should try instead?"" "Tentative, but he tried, and I'd pet him with this." "You can just leave him be for a little while." "Just kind of hang with him and let that soak in." "That's a more building sort of approach than, "That's wrong." "That's wrong." "That's wrong."" "All right, it's time." "Go on out that end." "Go into the round corral." "We're gonna go for a little ride here." " How you getting along, Bill?" " Great." "Looks pretty good." "Sure does, doesn't it?" "See if you can get on a lope." "Good." "Well done." " Coming through." " There you go." "Way to go." "That should have felt pretty good to you, Bill." "It did." "Kind of where you end up your ride on a horse is so important, you guys." "It's a little bit like when you guys were younger and 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." "That was a good day." "All right, I'll see you guys tomorrow." "Raspberry and peach cobbler, which would you like?" "Going for raspberry." "Oh, that one?" "Hey, Buck, why don't you do some rope tricks?" "This is kind of a tricky one here." "This is the move I used to always do for Mary when I was trying to trap her." "He was just a very ordinary boy, didn't show signs of early genius." "Thanks, Mom." "There was one point he thought maybe his trick roping would be his avenue to success, but when he first saw Ray Hunt doing his thing, he was so fascinated, he focused on that." "Pretty much anybody that's been involved in the horse world knows Ray Hunt, and Ray brought this style of horsemanship to the world." "Tom Dorrance was sort of the godfather of all of this." "Tom Dorrance taught Ray Hunt." "Ray Hunt taught Buck Brannaman." "That's kind of the lineage, as it were." "I met Ray right after I got out of high school." "One of my teachers told me about this guy that could start a horse and get on him in just a few minutes and ride him around with no bridle on, and I thought, "Right."" "I'd grown up on a ranch." "I was pretty punchy." "Rode a lot of colts and a pretty fair bronc rider for a kid." "I thought, "Yeah, another song-and-dance man, some horse show dude."" "I had an opportunity to go get this cowboying job at a place called Madison River Cattle Company." "They said, "Well, in order for you to get hired," ""you're gonna have to go talk to the manager, and he's at a Ray Hunt clinic."" "And I thought, "Aw, great." "Here's this Ray Hunt guy again."" "So I go into the fairgrounds." "Sat about as far away as I could so that I could show that I was not interested in this." "And then in come Ray Hunt." "I saw him do more things with a horse in a couple of minutes than I'd ever figured anybody could do with a horse." "He worked with a colt that was pretty touchy, and I had been around enough to know what a touchy horse looked like." "You could tell the horse truly understood what he was expecting of her." "He could take those feet anywhere he wanted." "They were his feet." "It was just an extension of him." "It was like a beautiful dance." "I took right to it as soon as I saw it." "I thought, "I don't even know what it is, but whatever it is, I need this."" "So that was the beginning for me." "I went to Ray's clinics, if not every week, every other week, for the next four or five years." "I was right down in the arena hanging over the round corral watching this guy lift a rein or move a foot." "I might not have known all what he was doing, but I was seeing it." "We got to be very close, and even though he said it wasn't that important that I pleased him or that people pleased him," "I looked for his approval, you know, the same way you would a father figure." "And later on, when Ray passed away," "I shed way more tears for him than I ever did my dad." "Now, you guys don't have to ride like Ray Hunt or Tom Dorrance, but that's the choice I made." "First clinic I ever did," "I probably wasn't, you know, a real effective teacher." "I was a pretty decent hand by then." "I could get a little bit of stuff done with a horse." "But I'm sure I just sounded like I was parodying Ray Hunt." "I didn't have anything original of my own to really talk about, and I was so introverted at the time, and I felt so uncomfortable." "I committed right then that I was gonna do enough little local clinics to conquer that." "Buck has worked so hard to overcome his shyness." "The clinics were so small when he first started, he would offer to haul the horses for free just to get 'em to go to his clinic." "And he couldn't have eye contact with you." "I mean, he was very shy, and to see him work that hard to overcome that... and I think it amazes him to this day that people want to even listen to what he has to say." "Ray used to say that he thought horsemen were born, but an average person can be extraordinary at this." "But if you don't have any guts, if you don't have any try, you'd be damn lucky to be ordinary." "You're gonna find out what it's like to actually use a horse and how nice they can be when they get used." "To work a horse properly on a cow, that's the coolest feeling there is." "Let the games begin." "I want you to be able to learn things and do things in real life if you were on a ranch where you had a job to do." "It's one turn and then a race." "One turn and then a race." "Give him a job." "Figure out how to build on the horse's pride." "Make him feel good about himself." "And I wasn't just talking about the horse." "Reata, that's good." "Nice, nice." "Mary." "As long as you can stay between your cow and the herd, you're in charge." "Dang, out." "I'm out." "See what happens when you're married to him?" "Britt, you're up." "Go move that cow." "There's really nothing more fun than chasing cows at top speed and just trying to react." "That's crazy fun, but that's not really what you're supposed to do." "So it's this constant battle to bring it back to some place that's controlled." "Stop." "See, you turned without stopping." "You know, that's the other half of why this is a really interesting thing, 'cause it carries over into every other aspect of your life, and I think it's made me a more resourceful and balanced human being" "on top of just less likely to get killed on a horse." "I love working cattle with my dressage horses." "I think it's fabulous for them, because dressage is a sport where there are really fine ballet-type movements that you're asking the horse to do." "It gives meaning and purpose to the dressage work, and then when you take that purpose back into the dressage ring, the horse says, "I'm practicing working cows,"" "and it makes sense to the horse, and then he will do it with a greater joy, because it has meaning to him." "It's not simply an exercise." "And I think that dressage work gives the cow horse skills that even cowboys could use." "There you go." "Horses get discouraged by riders who shut the doors, and Buck's really good at opening doors." "And you get to artwork or anything else that you do, you start to look at it for the open doors, and then you learn how to walk through those." "You guys want to throw a few heel shots?" "I knew that Buck was really a special guy, and because of his background, which I learned about, and the abuse that he had suffered as a kid, it was even more impressive that he could come through that abuse" "and, rather than repeating it, that he went the other way and decided," ""I'm not gonna have that in my life."" "Bill, I'll start with you first." "What's your stage name?" " Smokie Brannaman." " Smokie Brannaman." "And how about you, Dan?" "What's your stage name?" "They call me Buckshot, and I'm seven years old." "Well, who taught you to perform?" "Our father did." "And that's Ace Brannaman, right?" "Did he ever do this type of thing?" "Was he... did he ever do..." "The way my dad treated me when I was little, the way he approached us as kids..." "We've arranged a short demonstration, right, fellas?" "I wouldn't attribute any of my positive virtues to my dad in any way whatsoever." "I know you're not supposed to hate anybody, but the hurt that he caused me, I never really got over it." "So I live in the moment." "I like to live in the moment." "You worry about yesterday or last week or 20 years ago, it's not gonna work out too good for you." "You can't live in two places at once." "You know, I mean, you never forget, but you don't have to keep living in the past." "I mean, there's a whole bunch of things I learned from all the dark stuff that happened to me." "There's a hell of a lot of things I learned." "Now, I wouldn't necessarily recommend it to anybody, but it made me what I am." "Yeah, it got a little warm there for a while today, didn't it?" "Thank goodness my daughter... she's never gone through anything like that, and now she's almost grown up, so..." "You can just saddle them inside the round corral." "I think if a kid is living in an environment like I was when I was little, sometimes the way you protect yourself is, you just really don't communicate with anybody, and you try your best not to be noticed," "and you just sort of withdraw, and you'll see a horse sometimes that they've been mashed on by somebody to where you just look in their eyes, and they look like they're dead." "Yet that's the time when you try to encourage your kid to be outgoing and gregarious and be able to talk to not only other kids but adults." "Then just see if you can lope him right out of his tracks, 'cause that's what you might have to do if you're gonna jump out of your tracks on a cow or something." "You know what I mean?" "There." "He got it." "He kind of got it done in spite of you, didn't he?" "Dang it." "We'll make a cowgirl out of you yet." "You're only doing this so you can laugh." "Reata and I are an awful lot alike." "Thank goodness she kind of has her mother's looks." "Mentally, she's a lot like I am." "You know, Mary'll say, sometimes in frustration," ""She's just like you,"" "and I think, "What's the downside to that?"" "But she may not be seeing it just that way at the time." "And I look at her and the way she's developed, and I think, "I probably could have been that way when I was her age."" "That was in there all the while." "Do it again." "There." "That was a little better." "Yeah, I could feel it." "Buck, either before you get settled or when you get settled, you signed these books last year, and I need a translation." "It's Spanish or Latin." "Latin." "Solvitur en modo." "Firmitur en ray." ""Gentle in what you do, firm in how you do it."" " Yep." " Good words." "How are you, Charlene?" "Nice to see you." "It's good to see you." "I wanted to tell you I was all signed up to ride with you, and a couple of weeks before the clinic," "I found out I'm having a baby." " Well, all right." " Good for you." "I always learn even when I'm watching." "Good, all right." "Okay, you guys can come on over near the round corral here where you can get a good chance to see." "I'll work with this one first here." "Evidently he's a little naughty." "I guess you can see a little disrespect there, huh?" "He had to come up and stick his nose right in my face." "So I'll work with him, and we'll see the same things on about all the colts, but..." "Dan?" "This guy's a paint, and he was an orphan as a baby, and he was oxygen-deprived, apparently." "Dan, do you want to... which way do you guys want to bring him in?" "I'm gonna talk to Buck, see if he wants him or not." "He may want to... 'cause that horse might hold up the whole progress of the whole class." "So wait until noon." "So he might want to wait until, yeah, when it's convenient for Buck." "Maybe even after the whole deal." "I don't know." "I think we have a problem child we have to work yet." "All right, you can bring that one on in, Dan." "They make it sound like they're bringing in a Siberian tiger." "Was he hard to catch even in the trailer, Dan?" "He just kind of wanted to be a little aggressive in there." "Bite maybe." " Uh-huh." "Just a lot of threatening, you know?" "How old is he?" "He's three." " Uh-huh, how much have you worked with him?" "I got my back broken in two places." "So he has not been handled." "So he was more or less raised like an orphan." "Yeah." "Those can be the worst kind." "The orphans are always the worst, 'cause they don't learn anything about respect that they would have learned from their mother or from other horses." "They don't respect anything or anybody." "You know, people thought I should put him down." "They thought maybe he had some brain damage." "He's extremely dangerous, and he attacks cars." "I'm sure you're anxious to get that one in here, Dan." "Don't get hit." "Step in behind him there." "When he was an orphan, I didn't have a barn, 'cause my house burned down, and my barn burned down." "So I raised him..." "It was cool, so I raised him in the house." "It was cold, and I... so I bottle-fed him every couple of hours." "And I... how do you say it..." "potty-trained him." "It started out a good relationship." "It's just, somebody else has to come in and help me." "He's different." "And he's a stud too?" "Yeah, I'd do that the sooner, the better." "I mean, it looks to me like the last thing you need is a damn stud." "If you're gonna have one, a lot of you guys, you just as well get you a grizzly bear, an orangutan." "I've known Buck for over 20 years, and I've seen one other horse besides Kelly, a stallion, that stands out, but I've never ever witnessed anything quite like that, that dangerous and unpredictable." "Is somebody planning on trimming his feet someday?" " Yeah." " Any shoers here?" "Come on, you cowards." "You want to shoe him right now, or would you rather I got him a little better?" "You're booked." "'Cause Dan's gonna saddle him and ride him around here in a minute." "A lot of you that don't understand much about a rope, you'll find out I can stop him, and that's gonna come in handy for you, Dan." "When you're on him, you're gonna be real glad that I can stop him, once you understand how much more control I have by hind foot than I would by a halter on his head." "You already know you can't control him with a halter on his head, 'cause he's been chewing on people and has already been aggressive and wanting to attack people." "Hey, I want you guys to understand." "You can't hold it against him for kind of how his life has been." "Little bit, he'll lead soft." "Okay, Dan, you can come on in." "We're just gonna kind of love on him for right now." "You just kind of ease up beside him and just pet him." "Come on over with your blanket." "You'll just go up and rub him." "Yeah, good." "Good." "Go get your saddle." "And you kind of..." "while his frame of mind is kind of humble like that, you can cuddle him and kind of love on him too, so just pet him on the hind leg." "Now just see if you can just gently pick up the hoof." "That's the way." "There you go." "You can go around the front." "Rub him on his face there when he's being a good guy." "Watch him, though." "Block him when he wants to bite you, block, block." "That's the biggest thing is, nobody's ever blocked him." "We had to put up a sign that says "attack horse,"" "because if somebody did walk into the pasture, he would have taken 'em out." "One time, some people started teasing him, and I went up to him about 12 feet away in this golf cart, thinking that would bring him away from the fence, and instead he looked back at me," "pinned his ears, ducked his head, and did that aggressive horse behavior and came right at me." "Going, striking, feet, everything, and he pretty much came up over the golf cart and nailed me." "Now go for a little walk with him." "Now we're gonna stop him." "Pet him." "You're the good cop there, Dan." "You just love on him." "Rub him down that hind leg." "Looks good." "Just get on him like he's Grandma's horse." "All right." "Pick your lead rope up so it's not dragging there." "So you can kind of bend him if you need to, to the left." "Pet him." "You just rub him all over like you're just totally in love." "There you go." "Okay, walk off again." "Yeah, go ahead, just say," ""Come on." "Let's go, Yeller."" "There you go." "Pet him." "Pet him when he goes, see." "You got to remember that." "Now maybe we can lope him." "You got an opportunity." "There." "Go ahead." "Go on." "Pet him." "Pet him." "Rub him on the butt." "We don't want him to think every time he feels anything back there, he's just gonna get whacked." "Good job." "I'm gonna stop you now." "Okay, you can step off him nice and clean." "This isn't open for discussion." "At this point, Dan is the only one permitted to lead this horse anywhere, and then later on, maybe a little short evening session, you can work him on the end of your lead rope in here" "when it's just you and him by yourself." "I was really embarrassed, because he said nobody should have a stud horse, and I'm thinking, "God, if he only knew" "I had a whole pasture full at home, that I have,"" "and then he said not letting him get his head over so he can bite, well, it's healed up pretty well, but I'm gonna have that the rest of my life, yeah." "You know, I have thousands of horses under my belt and lots of experience." "And, hell, the safest place around this son of a bitch is on him." "You felt fine when you were on him." "But around him on the ground, he's treacherous 'cause of what he's, you know, gotten to be." "And he could hurt Dan or me or you or anybody else just in being spoiled, and he doesn't want to be that way, but he doesn't know any other way to be." "He's as close to having been turned into a predator as you're gonna find." "'Cause he's... he's been wrecked." "I'd want to give the older horses a chance to get him some manners." "He's run with some studs, and they take..." "You're nuts for having that many studs running together, lady;" "I'm telling you that." "Most people don't need studs, and for God's sake, they don't need 18 of them." "I don't know what you're trying to prove." "And if you got a lot going on in your life, probably a lot of it's a lot bigger story than this horse." "Yeah." "You ought to be a SEAL team member or something, as much risk as you like to take." "Why don't you learn how to enjoy your life?" "Life's too damn short." "This horse tells me quite a bit about you." "So this is just an amplified situation of what is." "Maybe there..." "maybe there are some things for you to learn about you that maybe the horses is gonna be the only damn way you're gonna learn it, 'cause you might not listen to somebody else." "Well, that's all right." "Sometimes I don't either, and I should." "Ask my wife." "I love the horses, but I have a responsibility to my fellow human too, you know, if I think maybe you might do something to get yourself hurt and you don't even see it coming, if I see it coming, I... you know, I have a moral obligation" "to say you're in big trouble here." "Sound fair?" "Okay." "He's right." "I mean, he's right." "L... you know?" "He's right, and I'm not..." "It's not just the horse." "He's... he's right about my life." "Yeah." "So, Dan, if you feel safer just roping him, can you rope him?" "I need to get my horse kind of warmed up a little bit." "Dan, Dan, Dan!" "Watch out!" "Hey, hey, hey, hey, hey!" "He's a psychopath." "Get out." "You're bleeding really bad." "He got you in the head." "Get out." "That's it." "You're done." "You got it?" "Here, Dan." "Hop down." "Just hop down." "Well, I need to stay here." "I know." "I know." "I know." "I'm sorry." "I'm sorry." "Dan, you've got a huge hole." "You need sutures." "It's a huge hole." "That's pretty bad, and you always carry something with you just in case." "I'm gonna have to put him down." "You want a ride in and throw some stitches on?" " No, no." " Not your chin." "Oh, look what he did to my hat." "He bit you." "He bit you in the head?" "Holy shit." "Then he knocked me over." "Okay, go sit down in my mom's car right there." "Why?" "'Cause I'm taking you to get stitches." "It's deep." "You could see the bone in the..." "Big fuss they make about it, just get it cleaned and closed." "Mr. Brannaman, you need to talk a little sense into Dan, and I figure you're probably the only one that can do it." "Dang." "About the third time I got that saddle blanket up over his back, boy, I didn't even see him, man." "He hit me with his teeth, boy, and knocked me flat." "Get it stitched up." "What you gonna do?" "We're gonna have to put him down." "I won't give him off to somebody who's gonna beat him to a pulp with a 2x4." "It's not something you do, and he... he's dangerous." "I'm gonna put him down, and that's the most humane thing to do for him." "Yeah." "Get out of there." "Dan." " Dan, Dan, Dan!" " Hey!" "Yeah, do not get close to him." "Step back away from him." " Is Buck coming?" " Yeah." "Please step back away from him." "I was just backing up to get the shot." "How are they gonna get him in that trailer?" "Come on, Kel." "Come on, Kel." "Come on." "Just sit still." "Just wait." "Come on, Kel." "Come on, Kel." "Come on." "Up." "Sit still." "Just sit still." "Just sit still." "Just don't do anything." "Okay, we'll see if you have any questions here." "Well, I'll talk to you right now." "The colt, when it was born, was not breathing when they got to it, and they didn't know for how long." "So the vet even figured that the horse had been oxygen-deprived for quite a long period of time, but he still could have made it in spite of his handicap that he was born with." "He could have made it." "If you just would treat this as if that horse, because of the oxygen deprivation, had some sort of a learning disability." "Well, number one, they should have worked with him like you might work with a disabled child and said, "Look, you might need a little bit of extra education because of where you're coming from."" "So you could have taken that disabled child and turned him into something of value to himself and everyone else, and he may have ended up just a kind, nice little horse that didn't have a lot to offer mentally" "but was just kind of okay with people, and he might have packed someone around." "He might have been the absolute opposite of what he is." "But you know damn good and well, she would go home, and she would either get hurt, get killed, or someone else would get hurt that was totally innocent." "The human failed that horse." "The human is that X factor." "That horse is a mirror." "All your horses are a mirror to your soul." "And sometimes you might not like what you see in the mirror." "Sometimes you will." "What were you thinking when you were just being so kind and patient with that horse to get him in there instead of just," ""You're no good," shut the door, and go?" "To have contempt for the horse never would even occur to me." "That's not..." "Maybe... maybe 30 years ago, it would have, maybe." "One of the biggest challenges of a horseman is, is to be able to control your emotions, and it's a... you know, probably more of a challenge for me... has been, you know, not so much now," "but it has been... because my dad had a violent temper." "He was a terrifying person." "So that kind of followed me around a little bit, thinking," ""Am I gonna be just like that old fart," you know?" "No." "No, you got a choice." "You can make choices." "You can't blame the whole damn thing on somebody else." "And, you know, I can't help but think that all you guys here, when you have a youngster, that you're gonna be thinking," ""Hoo, hoo, hoo, I've got some responsibility." ""I'm gonna take care of things and try to make this" ""as good a life for him as I can" ""and not let things get out of hand and teach him something," I hope." "I hope." "So we're headed from Chico to Red Bluff to the stock horse and ranch roping contest there." "The Californios is the deal every year in Red Bluff." "Buckaroo, vaquero-style roping, this is it." "Reata's doing the kid's class." "They call it the heritage class." "She's really looking forward to that, and this'll be her last year to do the kid's class." "Then she'll be too old." "The Californios is one of the highlights of my dad's season, 'cause he's been on the road traveling, living in his horse trailer, meeting a bunch of new people, having to memorize their names." "So I think it is definitely one of his highlights." "She won this event last year, Reata Brannaman, and she's showing a lot of these guys how to throw that thing." "That's about the most fun for me is out there roping with my daughter." "She wants to be..." "She emulates everything her dad does." "She wants to be just like him." "She's her father's daughter." "We did teach her how to ride, but it was already in her." "She could ride from the very beginning." "I mean, the very first time I ever watched her rope," "I thought, "Who's been teaching you?"" "Okay, we're good to go." "Reata Brannaman and her lovely assistant." "Yes, lovely assistant." "The way this works is, they've got seven minutes to do this." "Yeah!" "Yeah!" "Gee, she's a handy kid." "Outropes most men now." "There'll come a time when she'll be beating me, and that'll be fine." "It'll be time to turn it over to her." "Then I'll just sit around in the grandstands and talk about all the stuff I used to be." "But hopefully that'll be about another 30, 40 years." "People say they're too old when they're, like, 40, and you think, "Shut up." "Too old."" "Bill Dorrance was roping when he was 94." "That's how I want to be when I grow up, if I ever do." "Oh, it's always neat to see them after I've been gone for a long time, yeah." "But it's always hard to leave too." "You know, once you're around them for a few days, kind of start getting used to being around them." "Then you go back to your life of solitude." "So I'm still on the move." "I'm getting better, because I'm still studying." "I still want to be a better horseman." "I've learned so many things, and I thought originally I was just gonna be there to figure out how to get a colt started and figure out how to be a little better cowboy." "That's what I thought it was about." "Come to find out, that wasn't what it was about at all." "Out of a group like this, there might be some who become artists, where you become creative, and you use your imagination." "Now, that was a thing of beauty." "You look like one mind and one body." "If you got a taste of it, if you got a taste of what I'm talking about, you couldn't get enough of it." "You'd rather do that than eat." "You may spend your whole life chasing that, and that's possible, but it's a good thing to chase." "This is Buck's favorite joke." "It's a pirate scene, and the guy up in the crow's nest says," ""One enemy ship coming on the horizon!"" "And the captain says, "Quick, bring me my red shirt," ""because if I get wounded in battle," ""the blood won't show, and my men will fight on."" "So they had the battle, and after a bit, the guy in the crow's nest says," ""Ten enemy ships on the horizon!"" "And the captain says, "Quick, bring me my brown pants!"" "# Yes, I understand that every life must end #" "# Uh-huh #" "# As we sit alone, I know someday we must go #" "# Uh-huh #" "# Oh, I'm a lucky man to count on both hands #" "# The ones I love #" "# Some folks just have one #" "# Yeah, others, they got none #" "# Uh-huh #" "# Stay with me #" "# Let's just breathe #" "# Practiced on our sins #" "# Never gonna let me win #" "# Uh-huh #" "# Under everything, just another human being #" "# Uh-huh #" "# Yeah, I don't want to hurt #" "# There's so much in this world to make me believe #" "# Stay with me #" "# All I see #" "# Did I say that I need you?" "#" "# Did I say that I want you?" "#" "# Oh, if I didn't, I'm a fool, you see #" "# No one knows this more than me #" "# As I come clean #" "# I wonder every day as I look upon your face #" "# Uh-huh #" "# Everything you gave and nothing you would take #" "# Uh-huh #" "# Nothing you would take #" "# Everything you gave #" "# Did I say that I need you?" "#" "# Oh, did I say that I want you?" "#" "# Oh, if I didn't, I'm a fool, you see #" "# No one knows this more than me #" "# As I come clean #" "# Hold me till I die #" "# Meet you on the other side #"