Book dossier

The man who listens to horses

by Monty Roberts

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 thirty 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 thirteen he went alone into the high deserts of Nevada to study mustangs in the wild. What he learned there changed his life forever. Monty Roberts has spent his whole life working with horses- schooling them, listening to them, and learning their ancient equine language. In The Man Who Listens to Horses, he tells about his early days as a rodeo rider in California, his problems with 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. This inspirational and gentle man, first introduced to the American public on Dateline NBC, is part James Herrior, part Bill Gates, and part John Wayne. And his story is one you will never forget.