I recently watched a TV show dedicated to the contribution Don Burrows made to Australian jazz. The show highlighted his role as a mentor to so many young musicians. I know this to be true because as a young teenager I had my own experience with the generous nature of this great man. But the show started me thinking about mentors and the experience of being mentored.
In my last post, I added a photo of Harry Whitney. I know many who frequent this page are fans and students of Harry. I have a million Harry stories collected over 20+ years. I have known Harry since the mid-1990s both as a friend and a mentor. Harry is not the only mentor I’ve had in my horsemanship career, but he is probably the most influential. So I want to talk a little about my experience as a student of Harrys'. Not only as a clinic goer but as somebody Harry took under his wing for extra help and attention.
I met Harry through the good graces of Gail Ivey. I had not heard of Harry before that week. I had spent the past couple of months travelling around attending clinics by American clinicians such as Ray Hunt, Bryan Neubert, Buck Brannaman, Terry Church, etc. But Harry was not even on my radar. It was 2 weeks before I was scheduled to fly home to Australia when Gail suggested attending Harry’s clinic in northern California.
When Gail and I arrived Harry was in mid-lesson, but he stopped and shook my hand. At one point during the lesson, the horse reared up. Harry turned to me and asked if we had horses like that in Australia. I replied they were the good ones. Harry slapped his leg and laughed out loud. That was the start of a friendship.
Harry invited Gail and me to dinner that night and we talked horses. Harry asked if I would like to attend his clinic the following weekend in Healdsburg and he would arrange accommodation.
I got to watch Harry work with very different horses and very different people over the 2 clinics. I saw him ride the softest trot on a Paso Fino stallion who would only pace up to that point. I saw him mellow a spoiled mustang that was recovering from a mountain lion attack. I saw him turn a young horse that was climbing the fence of the round pen into a puppy by just doing seemingly nothing.
I wanted to know what Harry knew.
So I invited him to Australia for some clinics. He came 2 years in a row. But then he said he didn’t want to travel so far anymore and he would not return the following year. I complained selfishly about who was going to help me and he said, “If you can find the airfare to the US, I will put you up in a travel trailer and feed you.”
That was the start of the unofficial mentoring program. I visited Harry every year from anywhere between 6 and 12 weeks. This continued until probably 12 years ago.
So that’s the background. But what was it like to be mentored by Harry?
Harry was the teacher I needed 25 years ago. I was working on my own in Australia. Every other trainer I knew was either very traditional or Parelli influenced or Ray Hunt based. Nobody was talking or working in the way Harry was. Nobody was thinking or teaching about directing a horse’s thoughts. Nobody was interested. I felt alone and I know some people considered my work as crazy and on the fringes. So Harry was my lifeline. I needed the visits to Arizona every year to not feel so isolated and alone in what I was trying to do. I needed those trips to assure myself I was not as crazy as others thought. My visits with Harry kept me from straying from the path I wanted to be on.
As a teacher, Harry is not one to tell you what to do or to micro-manage your every decision with a horse. His best teaching is by example. If you are observant you’ll get it. If you are brave enough to try something without waiting to be told, you’ll get it. If you ask about “why” more than you ask about “how” you’ll get it.
Harry taught me the importance of doing less and waiting longer. I had seen a lot of big-name trainers get busy with horses. The more things went wrong, the busier they would get. It wasn’t until I saw Harry get changes in a horse with sleight-of-hand style finesse that I began to experiment with doing less and waiting longer. It wasn’t that Harry couldn’t or wouldn’t get big with a horse, but he knew how to pick the moment. I think he helped me with that too.
Harry taught me not only the importance of obtaining a horse’s focus but in how to direct it to perform a task. Harry didn’t just teach me things. He helped me be brave enough to evolve my own approaches and my own way of thinking about things. He inspired my own ideas, like that a horse not only has thoughts but it has hard and soft thoughts, and it has primary, secondary and tertiary thoughts. He inspired me to discover that the timing of a release was not about an instant release, but about releasing before a horse changes its thought. He inspired me to search for a deeper understanding of the difference between driving and directing. He helped me appreciate that straightness is as much a mental issue as it is a physical and about getting a horse’s thought between the reins to create straightness.
Let me also say that despite the reverence that some people pay to Harry, I have seen him screw up too. Most of the time his mistakes were so small only he and the horse (and sometimes me) knew it. But sometimes it would result in an equine meltdown. These too were learning opportunities for me. I learned, firstly, that everybody screws up, so don’t beat yourself up when you do. Secondly, I learned how to handle and recover from my mistakes. Making mistakes is not an excuse for self-pity and leaving the scene because you screwed up. There is so much to be learned by how you handle and move on from your mistakes. When you screw up, the horse needs your help even more urgently. Harry taught me that.
The other big part that I think I learned from Harry is how to use my brain for good and not evil. Harry recognized in me a very logical and deductive method to problem solve. He nurtured that - probably without realizing it. Anytime we were in the truck together or hanging out over a meal or in the grocery store or sitting in his living room looking through the 4,000th bloody sunset photo he took the day before (bloody hell, Harry’s obsession with shooting sunsets taught me to hate sunset photos), we would talk horses. He would ask me as many questions as I would ask him.
I remember one day telling Harry how I envied him for studying horsemanship virtually all his life, while I got side-tracked with a career in science. I said that I would be further along if I had not become a research scientist. He wisely told me that he envied me too. He said my life in science gave me an insight and ability to look at horses and horsemanship in a way that most people can’t do. He said my career before becoming a horse trainer made me a better horse trainer.
Harry and I have had plenty of disagreements too. We don’t share ideas on everything. I believe disagreement can be a stimulant for new ideas and not to be shied from. Harry never made me think my differing opinion or idea was not okay. Besides, I have always told him it was his right to be wrong :).
My horsemanship has grown since the days I would make an annual trek to Arizona for weeks at a time. It has evolved and matured in different ways. I have my style of horsemanship and teaching that has grown from many sources and experiences. But the influence of Harry’s mentoring always remains part of the backbone of my work. I hope the fact that I have taken Harry’s influences and moulded them into something different is a matter of pride for Harry.
Harry has mentored many who are now professional horse people - Josh Nichol, Shea Stewart, Julie Carpenter, Simone Carlson, Libby Lyman, Anna Bonnage, Ty Haas - to name a few that I know personally. I hope Harry is proud of his contribution. He should be. And I hope each of us who has gained from his knowledge does just as good a job for our students.
Harry and I don’t get the chance to spend much time together these days. My business has grown and my life has kept me very busy. But I am forever grateful for the friendship and mentoring. I hope some of you are as lucky as I have been to have the right person come into your life at the right time to help you with your horsemanship.
Horsemanship is a serious business, Harry! Good times sharing a joke.