Faraway Horses

by Buck Brannaman

  My job was helping to start the horses. After the horses were started, Jorie took them down to Florida where the teams’ players would play them. She tried to get the players to ride in the same manner that I did, without tie-downs, bit gimmicks, or other devices of torture that the players thought were absolutely necessary. Their response was that a Montana cowboy might be able to ride a colt, but he wasn’t qualified to educate a polo horse.

  I grew tired of hearing that reaction, so in the winter of 1988–89 I finally told Jorie, “If you don’t mind, I just might go to Florida and play the horses myself this winter.” Jorie thought that was a great idea, and I was pleased to hide from the harsh Montana winter.

  The Florida sun was shining when we arrived, and it felt glorious to be warm (it had been snowing in Bozeman the day we left). The town of West Palm Beach was right out of Lifestyles of the Rich and Famous. I thought some of the houses were hotels until Jorie told me they were single-family residences.

  The first time I visited the Palm Beach Polo Club, I arrived with Jorie in her Bentley. Actually, Jorie and I rode behind her driver, and I thought that was the way to travel. I can’t see putting $250,000 into a car, but it was a nice ride, there’s no doubt about it.

  The polo grounds occupied the biggest flat spot—no trees or water—that I saw the whole time I was in Florida. There must have been a couple hundred acres of nothing but beautiful green grass and polo field after polo field. Everyone stared at me as I walked onto the grounds in my cowboy hat and boots. I felt like a bug in a jar.

  A day or two later I checked out Royal Palm Polo at Boca Raton. A bunch of people were standing around a big chalkboard, and I figured they were signing up for some polo. So I promptly signed up. They were going to be playing that coming Sunday, and I thought if I wanted to get into it, the only way to do it was to show up.

  I arrived early Sunday morning with my horses. Brett Kiley, a really good polo player from Perth, Australia, and manager of Jorie’s horse operation in Florida, helped me braid their tails and get them ready. I didn’t know anything about doing the polo braid, a knot that keeps the tail from getting tangled with the player’s mallet, but with Brett’s help I got them ready.

  Someone came by with an armload of polo jerseys. When he saw what I was doing, he tossed me one with a number 2 on it. I had played enough organized sports, so I thought I’d just watch a polo match that was in progress; in that way I’d figure out what a number 2 does.

  In the box seat that Jorie had reserved for me, I sat watching polo and eating onion sandwiches with other spectators. They were dressed in furs and dripping with gold and diamonds; I thought it was pretty funny that people who could eat anything they wanted to eat were eating onion sandwiches.

  As the players galloped up and down the field, I discovered that you could take your opponent out of a play by getting your horse to push his horse away from the ball (I later learned that’s called “riding off” an opponent). Although I didn’t know a hell of a lot about offense, it looked to me as if I could handle that kind of defense. My horses were very comfortable being around other horses, and they could move up close to them. Thanks to all the ranch work they had done, especially roping other horses, bumping another player’s horse off the ball seemed like a piece of cake.

  As I was saddling up for my match, the man who ran the club came up to me. “Son, I can’t let you play your horses in a plain snaffle bit. You’re going to get somebody hurt, or get somebody killed.”

  Polo ponies are played in gag snaffles, full bridles with long curbs, and other severe bits that create the kind of stopping power the players want their horses to have. However, that wasn’t my way. My horses were all capable of doing the quick turns and hard stops that ranch horses have in common with polo ponies, but mine went in plain snaffles.

  So I replied, “I know that grounds fees for this club are seventy-five hundred bucks for the three months I’m supposed to be here. Why don’t you just let me play a chukker or two, and if you think I’m dangerous to people, then I won’t come back anymore. I’ll just go back to Montana where I belong, and you can keep the seventy-five hundred bucks, and I’m out of here.”

  The fellow agreed that was a good deal, so when the time for my match came, I got up on my horse and went out on the field. During the first two chukkers, all I did was gallop up to my equivalent position on the other team and ride him off the ball. Every time he’d make a run for it, I’d ride up beside him and just shove him off. It seemed to work well, so well that I sensed a little irritation from him.

  After a few chukkers and changing horses a few times, I started to pick up the rhythm of the game and how it was played, so I figured I’d take a swing if the opportunity arose. My chance came, and darned if I didn’t score a couple of goals. This, my friends, was Montana luck. I could hardly hit the ball, but my horses turned around well and ran straight so I could line up my shots. That gave me a little more time to figure out how to time the swing with my mallet. I’d seem to end up in the right place at the right time, and I could smack the ball a few feet or more and get it to go between the goalposts.

  I felt pretty good after the match. I hadn’t cost my team anything, and, as my horses worked well, I hadn’t embarrassed myself. Then the club manager came up to apologize. “I’m sorry to have doubted you,” he said, “but you have to understand the type of horsemen or would-be horsemen that I’m used to seeing. You can play in a snaffle bit around me anytime.” That manager’s name was Buzz Welker, and we got to be great friends that winter. He’s a very well-respected instructor who has taught polo out near Jackson Hole, Wyoming. I’ve seen him now and again.

  Back at my horse trailer, an older fellow in a straw hat came up to me and asked, “What club did you play for all summer long, son?” A lot of players played in New York or in other northern parts of the United States in the summer season.

  “Club?” I said. “Well, sir, I didn’t play for any club. This was my first time.”

  “You mean here?” he asked.

  “No sir, playing polo.”

  Because of my horses, he didn’t believe me. Nobody did. Everybody thought I’d been in polo for a while. Thank goodness I didn’t have to hit the ball very often to show them how inexperienced I really was. It was the defense that impressed them, I guess, and if it hadn’t been for my horses, I probably would have embarrassed myself. Riding that fast swinging a hardwood mallet sort of sets you up for a mishap. My horses really carried me through.

  That’s the beauty of the foundation I put on all the horses that I start. The basics are all there, so you can then finish up a horse to do anything you want him to do, whether it’s ranch work or horse showing or polo.

  When I wasn’t playing, I worked with troubled polo ponies, including a whole barn full that had been trashed by some of the pros. A lot of pro polo players had the hands of a butcher. They’d whip a horse on the butt to get him going thirty miles an hour to catch up to the ball, and about the time a player on the other team hit a back shot, they’d tear their horses’ heads off to get them stopped and turned around and off in another direction. The horses were damned if they did and damned if they didn’t. It was very frustrating for them, and it didn’t take too long before their minds were blown.

  Not all of the players were that rough, but there sure were an awful lot of them, at least in those days (nowadays, a shortage of good polo horses has placed a greater emphasis on better horsemanship).

  Using patience, kindness, and consistency, I was able to get the horses to recover fairly quickly, to the point that they were able to play for me. As a result, I had some real top-notch polo ponies for the weekend matches. I didn’t really do anything different with them than I’d do with any other horse, no matter whether it was troubled or just hadn’t been started. I ride every horse pretty much the same way. Some of my cues may be a little less forceful with a horse that’s been troubled and perhaps a little more assertive with one that’s been spoiled. I
ride the way I ride, and eventually all horses I’ve been on begin to look like my horses.

  If I hadn’t been around to work with those polo horses, they might have been sold to some local players at bargain prices. The locals wouldn’t have gotten along with them either, and they’d have been sold again. Many would have ended up on a Frenchman’s dinner table, some with sauce and some without.

  The work I did might have convinced some people about my methods, but it didn’t really change the way high-roller players treated their horses. They were too into their own thing. In those days, polo was all about money and winning punch bowls at tournaments.

  Some great polo horses have come off ranches in the West. Some receive basic training at polo facilities in the East. These generally don’t turn out very well because they haven’t been exposed to the real world of moving cows and riding out in the hills. Being raised and trained in the East can be a pretty stressful experience for a horse.

  My winter in Palm Beach was nice and warm, but it was also pretty expensive. Toward the end of my run there, I had my truck stolen right out of the hotel parking lot. I went to Texas to pick up a new one, and I drove it back, but before I packed my gear and headed for Montana, I had one more gig to do at the grand opening of the Vero Beach Polo Club.

  Jorie, who had seen my trick roping, thought that it would be a wonderful thing as a part of the entertainment for me to demonstrate the way I trained a polo horse and then do a few rope tricks.

  Prince Charles, who was a friend of Jorie and Jeffrey, had been invited to Florida to play polo at the new facility. When I got back from Texas, Jorie said, “Since you’re going to do a training demonstration and then a few rope tricks, why don’t you do a polo demonstration as well?” As it turned out, she had already set it up for me to smack some balls around with Brett Kiley.

  That stopped me a little short. “Jorie, I don’t feel comfortable hitting those polo balls around,” I told her. Prince Charles was going to be there, and she wanted me to hit balls in front of him. Not only was he the future king of England, he was also a very accomplished polo player in his own right.

  Jorie saw me start to sweat and said, “Dahling”—she always called me “dahling”—“you’ll just take turns. You will hit one shot, and Brett will hit the other.” I must not have looked convinced because she went on, “It’ll be great, dahling, don’t worry. Everything will be fine, you just trust me.”

  During polo season in West Palm Beach the days and nights could get rather “western,” as they say, and two guys from Montana—here Buck and his friend Greg Eliel—may need an eye-opener of coffee on occasion.

  For the next couple of weeks, I was beside myself. Since Prince Charles was playing, there were going to be five or six thousand people watching, maybe more. That’s a big crowd in any man’s league.

  Jorie and Jeffrey owned two or three hundred acres in Lake Worth, near West Palm Beach. The property included a private polo field, where all I did for eight or ten hours a day was ride horses and practice hitting. A couple of other guys rode on the grounds, but I was on my own.

  When the fateful day came, the training demonstration was right up my alley, and that part of the program was all net, no rim. The rope tricks went well, too; I’d been doing them since I was a kid, so that was a slam dunk. Then came the polo demonstration.

  Brett and I rode out to face a sizable sea of humanity, and the announcer started talking about polo. As he described the different shots we’d attempt, I loped up to my first ball, worried to death I’d top it. If I did, the ball would go about six inches, and five thousand people, including Prince Charles, heir to the throne, would be laughing at me.

  I loped up, swung my mallet, and when I hit the ball, the sound was the same as a perfectly hit baseball. What’s more, the ball soared about 125 yards through the air. Cool, I thought, but I also thought, What blind luck! I hope I don’t have to hit another one … maybe I’ll just let Brett go ahead and hit the rest.

  But Brett hit a ball, then looked over at me, backed his horse up, and sort of pointed to the balls as an invitation to go again.

  Off we went. We went through all the polo shots: neck shots and tail shots, forehands and backhands, from the near side and the off side. I don’t know how it happened, I still can’t explain it, but every shot I took, I hit the ball like Willie Mays hit baseballs. I never missed a shot. It worked out great, but I still couldn’t wait for the whole thing to be over with.

  That was a lucky day in more ways than one. I met some wonderful people, including Prince Charles. Considering my humble beginnings, I never imagined that one day I’d get to shake hands with a prince, and I was grateful for the opportunity. I also met George Plimpton, who’s made a career of being “someone else” and then writing a book about it. So I felt a kindred spirit, since I was impersonating a polo player.

  I don’t know if I’ll ever go back to Palm Beach for another polo season, but I met some good folks that winter, and I learned a lot about polo ponies. The experience made me a better hand with horses, and I know it made me a better teacher in terms of being a little more well rounded.

  On the downside, I did see an awful lot of troubled horses. But that was one reason I was there: to help fix some of the horses. I saw a lot that wouldn’t have had so many problems if they’d had better handling. And as for those masters with a polo mallet, some could handle a polo ball like nothing you’ve ever seen, but if you hanged them for being horsemen, you’d be hanging innocent men.

  That’s true of a lot of other horse events. The horse kind of takes a backseat to the event itself. The horse becomes the vehicle. So maybe that’s the reason there’ll always be somewhere for me to go. Those horses need someone on their side.

  As long as I live and can swing a leg over, the horse has a friend who’ll fight for him.

  9

  Farther Along the Road

  WE HAD TAKEN TWO TRUCKS full of horses down to Florida that winter, and we laid over in Baton Rouge for a few days’ rest. While we were there, someone arranged for me to do a free demonstration to drum up interest in clinics in that part of the country.

  Angel Benton, a friend from Colorado, asked a local trainer who was in the gaited horse business to find a horse for me to work with. I guess the fellow was insecure about a stranger from out of town coming in to show how to work with horses. He must have thought, This’ll be good, and he lined up a horse.

  He also didn’t keep it a secret. “Hell of a crowd, for people who don’t know me,” I said to myself when I showed up.

  A gray horse waited in the round corral. Before I went in, a Cajun man took me aside said, “I don’t know you, Mr. Buck, but you watch that sum-bitch because I know him.” No one else volunteered a thing.

  A never-before-saddled colt at the Denver Stock Show, bucking wildly after Buck saddles him. Buck allows the horse to buck and run, getting used to the saddle.

  I asked what had been done with the horse. When I do that, I’m not fishing for information about the horse. I’m interested in finding out about the person or people who’ve been working with the animal. That’s because a horse’s behavior reveals as much about a person as it does about the horse. Then, too, if my well-being depended on the accuracy in reporting a horse’s background, whether intentionally or inadvertently, I’d have been dead a long time ago.

  I was told the horse’s owners had tried to start him a couple of times. He bucked off lots of people, and once, when he ended up with the saddle under his belly, he went through a few fences. That didn’t surprise me. It happens all the time—it’s as common as morning coffee.

  Buck approaches the same colt in a gentle and friendly way after it finishes bucking.

  As I started moving the horse around the corral, I asked myself, “This is supposed to be a two-hour demonstration?” Although I knew the fellow who found the horse thought it would take only a few minutes for the horse to eliminate me, I also knew I’d have the horse ridden in no time. T
hen what the heck was I going to do for the two hours?

  The horse bucked pretty hard when the girth was tightened, but that was the extent of the excitement. So, to fill the rest of the two hours, I came up with every trick I could think of. I led the horse by one ear, by the lip, by his tongue. I even led him by his feet.

  These things are based on the unspoken but very evident draw or appeal to which another creature responds. Please note that I say “creature” because the connection works for us humans, too. For example, you can ask another person to dance, but even though you say the right words, the way you say them may not attract him or her. On the other hand, the right “feel” can be sensed across a room without a word being spoken—think of the lyrics to “Some Enchanted Evening.” The other person may have seen you and then made up his or her mind to dance the whole night with you even before you said a word.

  And how do you know? You feel it. “Feel” is the spiritual part of a person’s being. There are a thousand explanations for “feel,” and they’re all correct. Horses have it, and they use it all the time. You can’t conceal anything from a horse: he’ll respond to what’s inside you—or he won’t respond at all.

  I ended up the demonstration by riding the gray horse all around and then swinging a rope around him. When I had finished, I stopped the horse, who stood there hip shot (meaning he was so relaxed, his hindquarters weight rested on one hip).

  I looked around at the crowd. “I know a lot of you came here to see me fail, the way lots of people go to an auto race to see bad driving, not good driving. And then there’s this boy here who lined up the horse for me.” I called him a boy because he hadn’t earned the right to be called a man. “The sad thing is he didn’t know or care what would happen if I, a stranger to him, got hurt. Or worse. I might have a family to feed or a mother to support. All to try and prove a point that seemed important to him.”