Broken: a love story

This book has a lovely picture which I cannot download and there is absolutely no where to ask, "Why not?" Though the horse in the picture has a halter which is both too large and too clean and much too expensive to ever be found on any working ranch or reservation. Not to mention the horse which looks most like a thoroughbred. Rant aside leaving blogger and book cover designers and photographers behind, this was a very interesting book.

Broken: a love story. Horses, Humans and Redemption on the Wind River Indian Reservation by Lisa Jones.

Lisa is sent by her magazine, Smithsonian I believe, to see a four day horse taming, natural method approach, conducted by a Norther Arapaho, Stanford Addison. Stanford, a paraplegic at twenty. New spiritual powers emerged as he slowly accepted his life in a wheel chair or on his stomach when his pressure sores overwhelmed him. He could watch an untrained horse and often an untrained person and tell the person step by step how to get the horse to willingly accept them. You have heard the story before, green horse accepts person and they ride off into the sunset happily.
The stuff of my childhood dreams. Read Molly Gloss, "The Hearts of Horses" for a good fictionalized account of this.

Of course, the person "gentled" "trained" "taught" is Lisa herself. Addison is already who he is, trainer, observer, healer. Lisa is a single woman at 40 because she bolts at marriage proposals.

I do not want to write the story again. Read it yourself. ENJOY!