The Man Who Listens to Horses

Originally published: New York : Random House, 1997

Monty Roberts is a real-life horse whisperer -- an American original whose gentle training methods reveal the depth of communication possible between man and animal. He can take a wild, high-strung horse who has never before been handled and persuade that horse to accept a bridle, saddle, and rider in 30 minutes. His powers may seem like magic, but his amazing 'horse sense' is based on a lifetime of experience. Roberts started riding at the age of two, and at the age of 13 he went alone into the high deserts of Nevada to study mustangs in the wild. What he learned there changed his life forever. In "The Man Who Listens to Horses," he tells about his early days as a rodeo rider in California, his violent horse-trainer father, who was unwilling to accept Monty's unconventional training methods, his friendship with James Dean, his struggle to be accepted in the professional horse-training community, and the invitation that changed his life -- to demonstrate his method of "join-up" to the Queen of England. From his groundbreaking work with horses, Roberts has acquired an unprecedented understanding of nonverbal communication, an understanding that applies to human relationships as well. He has shown that between parent and child, employee and employer (he's worked with over 250 corporations, including General Motors, IBM, Disney, and Merrill Lynch), and abuser and abused, there are forms of communication far stronger than the spoken word and that they are accessible to all who will learn to listen.