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.

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

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.

If I had a horse buck with me now, I’m a little disappointed. It’s not the end of the world, but I’m a little disappointed if I couldn’t keep the horse out of trouble, whereas it used to be a source of pride, and now it’s sort of source of shame if I let the horse get lost.

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.

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.

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.