THE HORSES IN MY LIFE, by Monty Roberts, Trafalgar Square, 248 pages, $29.95.
Famous now as "the man who listens to horses," Monty Roberts was the model for the Robert Redford film, "The Horse Whisperer."
Roberts' new book, "The Horses in My Life," is "a celebration of his best-loved horses," almost 40 horses chosen from tens of thousands he has worked with over his 60-year-career.
As a child, Roberts rebelled against the traditionally cruel methods of "horse-breaking" employed by his father and many others of that time. He came up with his own gentle method of communicating with horses. He wrote of that system at length in his earlier autobiography, "The Man Who Listens to Horses" (1996).
Roberts' favorite horse was named Ginger, a 13-year-old retired ranch horse, a strawberry roan that he knew when he was only 2. According to his mother, Roberts rode Ginger by himself when he was 3. The horse allegedly walked, trotted and cantered while young Roberts was astride her back. When he was 4, Roberts won his first riding trophy, riding Ginger in the junior stock-horse class competition at Salinas, Calif.
Even during those early years, Roberts resented the cruelty so often rained upon horses: "I learned well before my third birthday how to escape from that cruelty — by running to Ginger. While I was riding Ginger, it seemed that my father couldn't catch me. Ginger's flying hooves took me away from the world of whips and beatings and the aggressive words that hurt more than any beatings could, and in his stall I could hide with a friend who protected me and seemed to care for me."
The second horse Roberts remembers was Brownie, a cross between a Thoroughbred and a mustang. He was a dark mahogany brown with a jet-black mane and tail. Roberts remembers watching his father use the cruel horse-breaking methods with Brownie — tying up his legs or trussing one hind leg at a time to the neck and shoulders. The hind leg, writes Roberts, "was held about a foot off the ground, which required the horse to stand on three legs. The idea was that the horse should fight against the rope until its will was broken — and then he'd stop fighting."
Roberts hated that method. And he also suffered his own harsh treatment from his traditional father. The idea with both horse and child was to break the spirit and force obedience. Roberts remembers spending most of his youth hiding from his father.
The book is an old-fashioned love letter to horses, as Roberts describes his relationship in great detail with his other favorites. The style of writing is purely conversational and appropriate to the subject, including many interesting anecdotes from his own life.
Roberts also includes numerous fine color and black-and-white photographs of horses.
This book would make an excellent gift to a young child who loves horses.
E-mail: dennis@desnews.com