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.

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

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.

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.

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.

Theoretically the human is supposed to be the smart one so as you get acquainted with the horse, you explore what it's going to take for him to understand what you would like him do, with as little trouble as possible. You're trying to avoid conflict, not trying to create it.

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