I grew up around horses, in southeastern Idaho, right in the middle of the Rocky Mountains. Dad always had a couple of quarter horses on the family farm, as working animals. The farm bordered the Snake River, so it was a long and narrow eighty acre piece of land with our house situated in the middle. My great grandfather arrived with his family in a wagon, cleared the sage brush and claimed the land. Saddling up one of the horses in the morning was pretty common, so we could easily get to one or the other end of the farm to check an irrigation project, or fix a fence. I learned to ride on a big, old mare, named Lady. She was a docile gal and very accommodating to a kid. Dad taught me how to ride her with no saddle or bridle. You just grabbed a big hunk of her mane, jumped as hard as you could, pulling yourself up with the mane and swinging your leg as high as you could (she was very tall – I was very short) to land on the top. Then you lean forward to give her neck a hug for being so easy to get along with, click your tongue a couple of times to signal her to start moving and hang on to that mane. Steering was simplicity itself. If you wanted to go left, you just tapped her on the right side of her neck and she swung her head left and followed her head. Stopping was a simple voice command. It worked like a charm, except for one occasion.
One hot August day, I decided to spend some time near the cooler Snake River, and riding a horse seemed easier than walking, so I grabbed myself some mane and jumped on Lady. I was wearing cut-off Levi’s with no shirt or shoes (best for getting wet in the river) and the two of us started off on our ride. We were moving along at a pretty good clip, but as it turns out, horses are skittish about snakes and snakes live near rivers. Lady saw one (a harmless water snake, but what do horses know?) and stopped absolutely short. I didn’t stop quite as short and ended up somersaulting through the air, over her head, hanging on to that clump of mane, for dear life and landing on my bare feet, face-to-face, in front of Lady. No harm, no foul – yet. For some reason, she decided that would be a good time to take a single step forward (perhaps to release the pressure of that death grip I still had on her mane) and her incredibly heavy hoof came down squarely onto my incredibly bare foot. Then, she just stood there staring at me, wondering why I was screaming, so loud. It seemed like it took about a month of banging on her chest, pushing on her nose, tugging on her mane and practicing all the new cuss words, I had recently learned from friends, but finally she did step back, freeing my trapped foot and we went home. My foot swelled to the approximate size of a soccer ball and I eventually lost my my black and blue toe nail, but I recovered. A horse whisperer, I am not. But I knew one, once.
So let me tell you a little story.
In my small home town, I had a friend, who was a professional horse trainer. Boyd was obsessed with horses and everything about his house, his clothes, his speech, his life was about horses. He spent weeks every year on the Arabian horse show circuit and was known all over the West for his ability to produce champions. I used to love to watch him work his horses, because he seemed to be able to get so much more elegance out of their movement than anyone else could. He used to say he did not believe in “breaking horses”, because when you break a horse, you break his spirit. The idea is to find ways to retain that spirit and channel it into behaviors that work. He was a very patient guy with very specific goals. He and the horses under his tutelage always got there.
One day, as he was working horses in the round ring, a truck and trailer pulled into the driveway. A neighbor, who was also a trainer, stepped out and told Boyd he was taking his big, black, Arab gelding to be put down by the vet, because he had tried repeatedly to attack several people and the day before, he nearly killed someone by laying his ears back, baring his teeth and striking out at him. He was clearly a man-killer and would have to be euthanized, before he actually did kill someone. The gelding was named Rukuba (Roo-koo-bah, with the accent on the second syllable) , and as the conversation unfolded, the horse stamped and bellowed angrily inside, kicking against the metal walls and making the trailer sway from side to side. Boyd stepped to the side of the trailer, looked at Rukuba and said, “Would you consider giving him to me?” The neighbor warned Boyd he was making a mistake and if Rukuba hurt someone, the liability would be his, but the deal was struck. The neighbor wanted no part of such an uncontainable mess of a horse. Boyd put him in a stall and the neighbor departed with the empty trailer.
The next thing that happened was something that I have recounted many times, as I have trained young men and women in business techniques, throughout my career. Boyd let Rukuba bang around in the stall, as he finished the other horse’s workout and then he went to the stall, put a halter on Rukuba and clipped a seven-foot rope to the halter. He picked up a nine-foot whip, opened the door and led Rukuba (with some difficulty and a lot of attitude) into the round ring, where most of the training happened at Boyd’s stable, every day. He cracked the whip once in the air, producing a popping sound that started Rukuba moving around the perimeter of the ring, but he was an angry animal and he moved grudgingly. He ears were laid back and his eyes were wide, as he kept them focused on Boyd. It looked like he was waiting for an opening. Boyd drove him harder and Rukuba became angrier. I started to worry that something was going to happen to Boyd. Suddenly, Rukuba, bared his teeth, laid his ears completely back along his head, let out an odd sort of wailing sound and shifted his weight to his rear feet in preparation to rare up and strike a blow against this puny, irritating human, but before he could complete the action, Boyd pulled his arm back and slammed that nine-foot whip across his chest with as much force and speed as he could, causing the end of the whip to hit Rukuba across both front legs. The big, black horse was stunned. He tucked his front feet under himself and landed on his knees in front of Boyd. His ears instantly flipped forward toward the source of the searing pain. He didn’t move after that, but he never took his eyes off Boyd. As this was all happening, Boyd had flipped the whip into the air end for end, so he could grab the “business end” and shove the handle under Rukuba’s nostrils. I asked what he was doing and he said, “I want him to get the scent of the man who just showed him that he can’t win.” I said, “Boyd, I thought you didn’t hit animals” and he said, “Jim, sometimes you have to get their attention, before you can train them. I will never have to hit this horse, again.” He never did hit the horse again, but a year later, there was a wall full of blue ribbons and trophies from horse shows ranging from Montana to California, that belonged to Rukuba. Seconds after that quick, violent encounter, Boyd carefully approached Rukuba, speaking softly and maintaining eye contact. He slowly extended his hand and began to stroke Rukuba’s muzzle, as he maintained the soft, reassuring patter. As I remember, he did this for at least thirty minutes. Rukuba stood there quietly and let him rub his nose and neck, with no threatening behaviors at all. That was it, for the day but the next morning, they got down to the hard work of learning to be a champion.
Rukuba never did lose the beautiful fire and arrogance that he displayed on that first day, but he quickly morphed into a gentleman and a talented athlete. Within days, there was real affection between man and horse, and Boyd was able to get Rukuba to come to him, lower his head and rub Boyd’s arm or chest with his forehead, just by calling his name. They were buddies. Sometimes, Rukuba acted like a huge puppy. Whenever we went for a horseback ride, he was the horse I always wanted to ride.
And that reminds me of another story.
One late autumn, Boyd, my father and I decided to spend a week-end with three horses riding in the Sawtooth Range of the Rocky Mountains. The plan was to drive the several hours from the Snake River Valley to the “jumping off” point in the foot hills on Friday afternoon, camp out near the trailer that night and ride all day Saturday into the mountains. That night, we rolled out sleeping bags next to the truck and trailer in a meadow and staked the horses, so they could graze and rest. We built a fire, enjoyed the evening and went to sleep. The Snake River Valley is over 4,000 feet above sea level and the Sawtooth Range contains many peaks that exceed 10,000 feet. We were camping deep into the mountains and we woke up next morning, to a bracing breeze and heavy cloud cover. The weather looked threatening, but we saddled up and rode into the mountains. We had all grown up in the mountains and a little bad weather wasn’t about to slow us down. Dad was on the quarter horse that I am riding in the above photo, Boyd was riding a grey, champion stallion, named El Mahdi and I was on Rukuba. We rode almost all day in God’s country, continually upward across clear streams, past stands of pine trees and quaking aspens, always with those dramatic Sawtooth peaks in the background, higher and higher into the Rocky Mountains. Early in the day, we had begun to see patches of snow on the ground but our trail was clear and we had expected to see snow at this elevation. It was a perfect day.
Weather in the high mountains can be notoriously changeable and dramatic and quite quickly, we all noticed a drop in temperature with a freshening of the breeze and increased roiling in the cloud cover. Then, it started to snow. We had all lived through Idaho winters before and it didn’t initially bother us. But within 30 minutes, the storm had grown to major intensity and achieved full blizzard conditions. We found ourselves in nearly “white out” conditions, caused by the sheer volume of falling snow, coupled with increasing wind speeds. We talked briefly about trying to find shelter, until the storm blew over, but none of us were completely comfortable with that option. Virtually every year, the newspapers print at least one account of a group, who died in exactly these conditions, even though they were all seasoned campers or hikers and should have been able to save themselves. The problem was that none of us could see well enough to figure out what direction could get us off the mountain.
Just when I was beginning to visualize my name in tomorrow’s newspaper headline, Boyd yelled at me, “Jim, Give Rukuba his head. He’ll get us down and the other two horses will follow him.” I figured he was the professional, so he should know what he was talking about. Besides, I didn’t really have any other plans floating around in my head. I loosened the reins a bit and that was all Rukuba needed from me. He wheeled to the left and lurched into a fairly fast pace, varying his gait from a trot to an easy lope and occasionally slowing to a careful walk to skirt a large boulder or get past a tight spot on the trail, which sent loose gravel, from his hooves, skittering down the mountain. I could hear Dad and Boyd behind me, so I knew the other two horses were right on Rukuba’s tail. The snow and wind was stinging my face and I was squinting so hard, I could barely see. It seemed like forever, but he never hesitated or stopped to correct his direction. He seemed to know exactly what to do. There is an old joke around my home town about an old mountain man, who said, “The five miles into the mountains were OK; it was the twenty-five miles back out that nearly got me.” Finally, the slope began to flatten out some and because of the lower altitude, the storm became somewhat tamer. At last, we were on flat ground and Rukuba settled in a slow loping pace across the meadow. The snow was now falling softer and the wind had died down to something normal. Within a short time, Rukuba brought us right to the edge of the horse trailer and stopped. I will never understand how he got us there, but he made it look effortless.
I was stunned and grateful. What a rush; what a memory. Rukuba was a joy to be around, definitely an all American boy, an athlete and a champion. And Boyd was definitely a bona fide horse whisperer.
