08/26/2022
Legends
A horse named Hondo made it necessary for Ray to change his ways.
Hondo made it clear that Ray could be broken, but he, the horse, could not.
"Everything I know now started with that horse," Ray said. "Hondo was a sticking, biting, kicking, bucking tough c**t who might have killed me.
Hondo would tell me, ‘Come on and try to break me, and I’ll break in YOU again’........and he would have. But I had all winter to work on him. He was my only horse; without him, I was afoot. It was just him and me and I tried to put myself in his place. How did he get so afraid? What could I do to make him trust me? A horse that’s had trouble can’t believe a human will quit hurting them. I felt sorry for that horse who had to hold up his defence. You can’t blame him.
I worked on him some and we got so I could get near him, then get on him. I’m not saying it was all love and kisses. You better believe it. Things could get pretty physical, pretty western. I’d go to bed at night and think about that horse, dream about him, then go back to work with him the next day."
In the middle of the winter of 1960-61, Ray took Hondo to Tom Dorrance.
"He’s a little old bow-legged cowboy; he’s the brains of it all. He can fix a horse so fast you never knew what happened.
And who taught Tom? He says it was the horse. As soon as Tom came around me, Hondo would act like a lamb. And as soon as he left, I’d be riding a tiger again. I couldn’t understand. Something was going on but I couldn’t find it.
See, I was too forceful. The timing was good but the mental feel of how it could be wasn’t there. I couldn’t visualize it and the yielding wasn’t there. The horse was afraid of me. I thought I had to hurt him to get him rideable. I knew it wasn’t right. And pretty soon, I learned that to get respect, I had to give respect.
Sometimes it’s hard to figure out because a horse is so big and strong, but there’s a difference between firm and forceful. And there’s a spot in there, inside the horse, an opening where there is no fear or resistance, and that’s what I began looking for."
By the end of the year Hondo was gentle, smooth, athletic, and kind to be around, a horse the grandkids could ride.
Image is of Ray and Hondo accepting a first place award and is from an article which appeared in The Western Horseman, January 1995 'Ray Hunt; Western Horseman of the Year' - http://westernhorseman.com/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=1166&Itemid=77
Ray's quote is from an article written by Gretel Ehrlich; the article was published in the 'Shambhala Sun' July 1998 - http://www.shambhalasun.com/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=1991