Buck Brannaman

What are your opinions of him?
I'm going to one of his clinics in October, and personally, I really like his training methods from what I've seen and heard.

I don't know that much about him, let us know how you like the clinic!

Buck has been around for many,many years. The movie The Horse Whisperer was loosely based on him. There is a documentary about him that just came out this year called "Buck" as well

He is one of those trainers that has had his style used by PP, CA, and others. I've seen a few clinicians in person but would love to see him especially.

Twice I've driven over 500 miles to watch Buck Brannaman give a clinic, and both times were well worth it. The man has so much knowledge and such an ability to inspire. The only caveat is, he has a very straightforward and sometimes blunt style of speaking and teaching. He is very honest and says what he thinks, and it can get uncomfortable for some people. If you can handle that, though, you can come away with a wealth of new knowledge and ideas.

There are some good clips of Buck on Mike Thomas' youtube channel

MikeThomasHorsemen's Channel - YouTube

He's very good. Down to the earth and no fuss. I have couple of his videos.

It's more like he likes to talk rude and crude. I couldn't stand his personality, but his horsemanship was fantastic -- not "nice" you understand, but not heavy-handed. He did JUST what was necessary for an effect, and of course to the horse, he was totally understandable, no conflicting signals. What I liked was, even though he was pretty rough with this particular big, spoiled TB, at the end of the half-hour, the horse wasn't the least bit afraid of him--well, maybe the very LEAST bit-- or physically tired, just very attentive. The question is whether he could train the horse's owner to continue in the same way.

I will be riding in one of his clinics next year. I love that his style of training bridle horses takes years to master just like the vaqueros but that he fused in natural horsemanship to perfect the training and mold the horse into a willing partner not out of fear.

I confess to being a fan, but I'll try to describe him a little more objectively. Basically, when you go to Buck Brannaman he'll tell you that you're responsible for the behavior of your horse good or bad. He pulls no punches, and while that appeals personally to me I will freely admit that it's not for everyone. As for the question of whether a person can be taught to work with horses like he does, I would say that it depends on a person's desire. I think that the type of person who will get the most out of studying with a teacher like Buck is the one for whom horses and horsemanship are a lifestyle. Speaking from my own experience, I can say that it is very hard to learn to be good with horses in general (as opposed to just a few of one's own horses) and to do so requires an uncommon level of dedication. For me it's easy to have that dedication as becoming a good horseman is the most important thing in my life. So I'm able to easily overlook Buck's teaching style, because I'm too busy trying to figure out how to get better to be offended by him.

For the person who prefers a teacher with a more pleasant and feel-good style, though, Buck Brannaman probably isn't the best choice.

My trainer loosely follows the techniques of Buck, he says Buck was his biggest inspiration.

I use the techniques my trainer taught me on my horses. Not sure how similar they are to Buck's (I'm guessing they are close), but I can testify that if he's anything like my trainer, he is WELL worth the price and time, especially on horses that respond well to NH. The basics can be applied to almost any horse, and my trainer tries to cover how to do it yourself, so that he is not needed anymore.

Buck is unique in the fact that he is one of the very few clinicians that has actually USED a horse to get work done. He was a cowboy on several big Montana outfits and now has a ranch of his own. I like him because he will talk about life outside the arena or roundpen. He will show an exercise and then relate how you can do it on the ranch or going down the trail. I've never seen him try to sell anything either. He is much like Ray Hunt in that you will get the unabashed, no B.S. Truth rather you want it or not. I don't find him rude and have never heard him be mean to anyone that was honestly trying to understand what he was saying.