Chapter 4

Remember how my nurse friend helped me back him over Easter? I’d never started a horse before and my guide in this precarious exercise was From Birth to Backingby Richard Maxwell, a fellow countryman trained by Monty Roberts of The Horse Whispererfame.

Mr. Maxwell performs miracles with equines in my native England and I once witnessed him in action with a friend’s horse. I’d sold her a horse van when one day her trusty steed, Rocky, refused to go up the ramp into the vehicle. Within five minutes Mr. Maxwell had Rocky cheerfully walking up by himself!

I trusted this man and followed the instructions in his book to the letter.

One thing he advised was to take a young horse out on the trails by himself for the first time. Doing this very early in his training makes the animal confident about going out alone. Many horses learn to ‘nap’—that horrible habit of refusing to leave the barn without their equine buddies.