Horse Sense for People - Softcover

Roberts, Monty

Softcover

ISBN 10: 000653161X ISBN 13: 9780006531616

Publisher: HarperCollins, 2001

The man who listens to horses talks to people.

'Monty Roberts will make you marvel. The Man Who Listens to Horses will first break, then mend your heart.' New York Times

Already famous for his way with horses, Monty Roberts now wants to revolutionise the way we communicate with each other. His principles of trust and non-violence, about which he speaks so passionately and lucidly in his public demonstrations, made corporations from all over the world send their managers to watch his work with horses. They saw that Monty's techniques could be applied to business leadership and training.

People of all kinds all over the world write and talk to Monty Roberts everywhere, because his passion for understanding, for gentleness, for fairness, reaches all of his audiences. They respond to his ideas of how we can make the world in which we live and work a better place.

'The demonstration by Monty Roberts taught us some valuable lessons in peoplemanship. Each of us learned something we could bring back to our daily lives.' Richard H Frank, Chairman, Walt Disney Communications

We can't all meet him, so in response to the almost universal demand to Monty to make his life-changing thinking available to everyone, he wrote this book.

Review:

Monty Roberts, famous horse whisperer and author of Horse Sense for People, believes that "No-one has the right to say 'You must or I will hurt you' to any other creature, animal or human". He has long practised his creed of "non-violence, respect and choice" in his work with horses using a method he calls "Join-Up" described in his earlier book The Man who Listens to Horses. In Horse Sense for People he explains, through a series of carefully drawn parallels, how Join-Up applies to human beings. It is a system of behaviour management based on two-way communication, mutual respect and positive reinforcement of good behaviour. He rejects spurs, whips and other forms of compulsion for horses and their equivalent for human beings. Roberts and his wife Pat have helped to bring up 47 foster children--as well as three of their Own--on their thoroughbred horse farm in California.

Under chapter headings such as "Trust", "Against Violence" and "The Good Parent" he tells stories and details case studies based on the remedial work he does with--often deeply troubled--human beings. Take the mother who had been home-educating her five daughters and beating them almost daily. She suddenly realised that something was very wrong in her life and approached Roberts for help. Or Peter--"damaged goods" and "with enough baggage for a 40 year old, let alone a boy of fourteen"--the delinquent son of criminal parents who came to Roberts for jockey training.

Roberts is a wise man. And he writes beautifully with a knack of expressing profound truths in language so spare that you don't quite absorb the enormity of what he has said unless you stop and ponder. "Genius lies in the simplest things in life", he says and "Fear is the antecedent of violence; ignorance is the antecedent of fear". His inspiring but practical book should be compulsory reading for any human being who has responsibility for, and power over, others. --Susan Elkin

Review:

Praise for Shy Boy:

‘This gripping and enthralling book, which shows the traditional relationship of man and horse in a completely new light, proves extremely hard to put down whether one is a horse-lover or not.’ Country Life

‘Stunning’ Daily Mail

• Publisher: HarperCollins
• Publication date: 2001
• ISBN 10: 000653161X
• ISBN 13: 9780006531616
• Binding: Paperback
• Number of pages: 288