Short description
When Monty Roberts was 13 years old he went off on his own to the deserts of Nevada to watch Mustangs in the wild. What he learned about their methods of communication changed his life and earned him recognition among horse breeders and trainers around the world. This is his autobiography.
Long description
When Monty Roberts was thirteen years old he went off on his own to the deserts of Nevada to watch mustangs in the wild. What he learned about their methods of communication changed his life forever. The Man Who Listens to Horses reveals his deep love and understanding of horses. We learn how, through his relationship with various horses, he gradually developed the methods which enabled him to communicate in their own language: a silent language of gestures like signing for the deaf. According to Monty, anyone can learn the language of the horse and anyone can learn his Join-Up(R) methods. In this book he tells you how. This is the bestselling autobiography that spread Monty Roberts' message across the world and changed his life forever. Unique and inspirational, and with a message that resonates far wider than its application to horses, it might change your life too.
Review
The surprisingly complex and lively memoir of a successful and influential horse trainer who helped pioneer nonviolent methods of breaking horses in. Some of the book's vigor and pace may have to do with the fact that Lucy Grealy (Autobiography of a Face, 1994) is the coauthor. The narrative begins in 1948 when Roberts, then 13, spent time studying wild horses in the Nevada desert. He applied what he learned there to radically new ideas about how wild horses could be trained and came to be an important figure in horse racing circles. His portrait of the business of breeding and training horses is frank and fascinating, but the book's most memorable passages cover the rodeos and horse business in the west as it was in the author's youth, and include a haunting portrait of his violent, racist father and of some of the other remarkable figures Roberts knew (including a young James Dean). Over and above everything, though, is Roberts's surpassing love for horses, captured here in his evocations of the horses he has trained over a career spanning four decades. (Kirkus Reviews)