Humans are from Mars Horses are from Venus A Path to True Partnership
raise your hand
if you love horses well it’s a good
thing because there’s only two kinds of
people in the whole wide world
horse lovers and the other kind
now what a greater place to be than to
be right here in the horse capital of
the world
ocala florida marion county has over 80
000 horses of every kind type and size
everything from tony the pony to danny
the draft horse
now not everybody loves horses and i can
tell when they say things like
horses are dangerous horses
are expensive that’s usually the husband
horses stink now us horse lovers when we
get close to our horse get up close and
personal before we do
we take a look right and left make sure
no one’s looking especially
from the other kind and we get in and we
get a big
whiff of horse there ain’t nothing like
it
because horses are nature in its finest
form so much so
that the latin word for horses equus
which means equal us
now this isn’t a paradoxical
hypothetical relationship
because the horse is the ultimate prey
animal we are the ultimate predator
why would they let us catch them why
would they let us halter and why would
they let us touch them
and ride them and race them and jump
them and do all the wonderful things
that they do
i know that for sure that horses
complete us
and there’s only one way that we can
complete then and that is if we have
and learn the natural principles of true
partnership
to create equis so i’m here today to
share with you how horses
have enabled me to be able to learn
these principles and to employ them
now i’ve had horses in my life since i
was three years old
and today i’m a professional
horseologist
i’m also a success coach for thousands
of horse owners
around the globe including some very
high profile horse lovers like the queen
of england
ronald reagan tony robbins and the dog
whisperer
yes caesar milan even he loves horses
well it’s easy to see why we could love
horses because they are so special to
look at
there’s something about them but greater
than all of that i’m the proud father
of a handicapped child my son kate and
ryder pirelli is
37 years old he has hydrocephalus and a
form of autism
now before i share his success story
with you
using love language and leadership in
equal doses and embellishing it with
lateral thinking what i want to do is
answer your question
what in the world is a horseologist well
some people call us horse whisperers
some people call us
horse tamers some people call us equine
ethologists
but we are certainly not people who
break and train horses using mechanics
fear and intimidation
we are real horsemen so
one of my most legendary and but what we
do is
we use communication understanding and
psychology to rehabilitate horses who
have behavior problems
who have been created by their humans
who don’t understand them in the first
place
one of my most legendary rehabilitation
projects and partners
is a little black mare named magic now
when i met her her name was not magic
her name was spider because she was
known as the black widow
she i met her in australia a little
little island down below
called tasmania and 300 people came to
this clinic to see
if these principles of true partnership
could be employed with even a horse like
her
she had been through six professional
trainers they all said she was
untrainable and she was so dangerous she
should probably be euthanized
by the second day this i started a
relationship that started to butt into
it
and develop into a partnership and i
loved her so much i bought her
purchased her flew her all the way back
to america and did
thousands of demonstrations around the
world with her to share with
the world how this could be she was my
dream horse
she was everybody else’s nightmare
as we can start to go and start to
realize
how does this happen now my my horse
life has had some up and downs when i
was very young with horses
i was passionate about horses horses
horses horses no matter where i would go
looking out the window horses horses
horses
i was passionate i wasn’t much of a
reader but i read the whole series of
walter farley books
the black stallion and he had a whole
bunch of but the one that impacted me
the most was one called
the horse tamer now the horse tamer was
alex ramsey’s
ramsay’s uncle alec was the
main character in the whole black
stallion series
and it turned out his uncle was so good
with horses that he could tame
any horse anywhere anytime under any
circumstances
and that inspired me to want to be
really good with horses i wanted to be
so good with horses that even horses
thought i was brilliant my 4-h leader
said you should get a job
a career with horses so guess what i did
i took her advice
i found a stable not far away one i
could ride my bicycle to
that had a professional horse trainer he
was a world champion
and everybody there said his word was
gospel
even though he was a bit rough with
horses so i went there i got a job i
started right at the bottom i started
sleep cleaning stalls then i started
grooming horses
then i started exercising horses and i
was such a good rider even as a teenager
they put me on young horses that had
never ever been ridden
and even on some older horses that
didn’t want to be ridden again
i got so good at staying on horses that
i ended up having a 14-year rodeo career
yes i rode bucking horses until my
brains came in
now this man was rough and tough with
horses
and the horses that made it went on and
did real well in the show pen
and his program was easy for human and
hard on horses
but it was easy for me to follow all i
had to do is follow what he did just be
chauvinistic
be autocratic be anthropomorphic you
know put human thoughts and values into
animals actions
show them who’s boss and all we had to
do is be linear
he had a cookie cutter program that was
so easy for humans but so hard on horses
and so
it was easy for me because i had this
condition then called young man’s
disease
well i followed that i guess philosophy
for several years after that and one day
on my way to the stables
i’m driving there and i had the sinking
feeling that my dream of being really
good with horses so good that even
horses thought i was brilliant
had turned into a nightmare for me and
the horses because that morning i felt
like i was broke and the horses had all
the bucks
and lucky for me and thousands of horses
since then and
thousands of horse lovers i ran into a
real horseman
that taught me the natural principles of
true horsemanship
he said it’s easy use love his name was
troy henry
he said use love language and leadership
in equal doses
and embellish it with lateral thinking
you have to think outside the box to
solve these puzzles
sometimes us horse lovers say think
outside the barn
and what he did he shared with me how
simple it was
if we kept it natural but he said to me
you want to become a horseman not a
horse trainer because they just use
mechanics fear and intimidation we’re
going to use communication
understanding and psychology we’re going
to put principle in the head of purpose
he took me under his wing for five years
until he graduated to horseman’s heaven
after he passed away i knew i needed to
share these principles with the world
in 1982 i put my first seminar on
and i walked out in front of 30 people
and said these words
horsemanship can be obtained naturally
through communication understanding and
psychology
versus mechanics fear and intimidation
and if you want to be really good with
horses all you have to do is walk
watch everybody else and do the opposite
that was over two million
seminar goers ago now i have shared
these
principles with all these different
people all the different
horse lovers around the world but these
principles needed to be challenged
in 1983 my son was born kate and ryder
pirelli
had hydrocephalus and at three months of
age he went into a coma
we took him to oakland’s children’s
hospital we lived in northern california
at the time
and the doctors the surgeons there did
mris and said
we think we can put a shunt in to
relieve the pressure but the mri shows
so much brain damage he’ll pro
if he lives through the night he’ll
probably never walk or talk and he’ll
have to be institutionalized
well the shunt did work but my
giver-upper didn’t
we took him home and by the time he was
six he could walk okay
but you know what he could do he could
always raise his hands up because every
time i would ride by a horse
he would have those hands up there say
daddy daddy i want to get on a horse
and i would put him on a horse usually
bareback i’d put him on in front of me
and then you know what happens something
magic we’ve all heard about hypothermia
and how it helps
handicapped individuals i could feel
something happening down in his legs
that wasn’t happening before
some little something that was going on
there and i thought there it comes it’s
starting to happen
so then i started to put him on his own
horse and i put him on a saddle i had a
little seat belt
and he started being able to use his
legs the horse could feel it and he
started to go
and if it wasn’t going fast enough he’d
reach back with the little saddle
strings give him a tap on the rump
pretty soon he was flying across the
arena he was flying across the ranch
he was helping his dad out on the ranch
doing the chores and bringing in the
cows
he looked like a little pegasus with a
cowboy hat
by the time he was 11 years old he could
walk pretty good he could ride a bicycle
he could snow ski
and he could even ride a horse bareback
and bridalis all by himself
then it happened when he was 12 years
old he had a stroke
a massive stroke he lost everything on
the right side of his body
well today he rides horses every single
day
i just got off the phone with him just
before here because he wanted to go to
lunch
and he rides six to seven hours every
day he rides and slides he spins and
wins he turns
and burns he drives everything on the
ranch including his dad crazy
and he’s won five championship belt
buckles against able-bodied people
and he’s even been featured on the cover
of a national magazine because of what
how natural he is in all of his
accomplishments
this is proof there is nothing you can’t
do
when the horse becomes a part of you and
you cannot force this
this is something only that can happen
through love language and leadership in
equal doses
and yes every horse has a puzzle to
solve
so we have to use lateral thinking we
have to be able to think outside
the barn but using these principles to
get horses to be partners with humans
and using these principles to be
partners with my son and even better yet
the horses started being principal
partners for him
and this is what has enabled him to do
the things that he’s able to do today
well it wasn’t always easy
there were some little obstacles but
this is where the lateral thinking part
came in
he they said he would never be able to
do math so i just thought i can figure
that one out
he loved these little red candies named
hot tamales you know which ones i’m
talking about
well i’d put two in this hand i said if
you can tell me how much two plus three
is
you get the candies if you don’t i get
the candies
and guess what gulp a month later i
gained about 10 pounds
he got very very very clever though and
i’m telling to this day he’s really good
with math
as a matter of fact yesterday morning i
said hey kate how many horses do you got
he says
easy dad he counted all the legs he died
divided by four
he said we got 27.25
so we got one a horse with five legs
you know we all know that we’re all
different in our personalities the way
we think
the way we learn and he’s no different
now
i’m a success coach i try to help people
to
really get to understand how horses feel
think act and play and for most people
if i give them a concept
i usually about 10 steps maybe 12 at the
most and most people can get it
but him it might take a hundred well
these were
little bit of little rungs on his
learning ladder but they were arrows in
my quiver as a success coach
because the 10 steps that you might need
might be completely different than the
10 steps the person next to you need
see most people who are really good at
something they have a cookie cutter
linear
direct line approach to teaching and
they say things like oh you know you
just do this no well there’s 17
other things you do before you put the
just do it and most people who are very
good at things are not great
teachers well this enabled me to be a
better success coach it needed me
to be a better partner for my horses and
for my son
and as we all know people all have
different personalities we’ve all heard
about the different personality
paradigms that are out there
well guess what horses have horses
it would be very anthropomorphic of us
to say that horses have personalities
now there’s extroverts there’s
introverts there’s right brain there’s
left brain
let me give you a couple examples here
so magic
she was a right brain introvert and
people were going too fast with her
and she said to me basically just if you
go down and go slow
and go slow enough at first i’ll
consider
being your partner now the left brain
extrovert horse
he says i’m raring to go or i can’t go
because i’m raring i want to put my
horsepower into my horse play
the right brain extrovert horse says i
gotta get out of here i gotta move my
feet
somebody stop me the left brain
introvert horse says move my feet
yeah you and who else i got was mr
ed and why would i want to move him
anyway
wilbur you see
we all have met these people the right
brain
left brain person the extrovert the
introvert you know the left brain
extrovert that says let’s get her done
with a bit of fun and the right brain
introvert that says
i don’t know is that going to be safe
for the kids and the right brain
extrovert that says
let’s get creative and do something
right now and the left brain introvert
says
now hold on there nelly i think we
better slow things way down here and we
do some analytics before we make a
decision like that
so i guess what we can all learn from
this is that
linear thinking direct line thinking is
selfish and is probably the beginning in
the end
to all relationships but using love
language and leadership in equal doses
use embellishing it with lateral
thinking learning to think
outside of the box it’s a
great blueprint now it’s probably easier
said than done
no doubt about it but it’s definitely a
map
now we’ve all probably heard the
biblical saying do unto others
as they have done as you’d have done
unto yourself
but maybe those of us who dare to use
lateral thinking enough to think
outside the barn maybe would adjust that
a little bit
so as we start our relationships with
every different kind of personality
every different kind of horse analogy
and maybe even every kind of dog analogy
and have you already thought about what
kind of personality you have
whether you carry a purse or not
that we might say do unto others as they
want done
unto them and as i’ve learned from my
horses
my son and my mentors it’s best to keep
it natural
by being polite passively persistent in
the proper position
but that perspective takes patience from
process to product
may the horse be with you
you