‘Horse Whisperer’ Takes a Different Tack in Training

The next step for Charley, a 9-year-old quarter horse-thoroughbred mix, was death.

He was so out-of-control--constantly rearing and bucking--that his new owner, Gail Eneriz of Camarillo, feared he would seriously hurt someone. One trainer urged her to sell the horse.

“And when he didn’t sell, she had me convinced that I should send him to the killers,” she said.

As a last-ditch effort, Eneriz met with Somis trainer Jim Frazier on the recommendation of a friend.

The difference, she said, was like black and white. “This training that Jim uses is a language within itself,” she said.

Rather than use force, the traditional means for training horses, Frazier communicates through verbal and nonverbal signals.

He is part of a movement that has emerged in recent years called “horse whispering.” Its practitioners believe in cultivating a partnership with the horse.

“It’s a gentler way of training,” said Mary Jo Lord, director of the horsemanship program at Cal Lutheran University. “You’re not yelling or being aggressive toward the horse.”

The trainers do not literally whisper to the horse. “Whispering just means using a softer, quieter technique,” Lord said. “The key word is patience.”

Traditionally, horses have been trained through negative reinforcement--a jerk on the bridle, a kick in the belly or a slap with reins or a fist.

“Horse whispering,” by contrast, relies on hand gestures and other body language, along with words, to communicate with the horse.

For instance, Lord teaches her students to work their horses in a small pen to keep their attention. Walking toward the horse slows the animal down, and holding up a hand stops the horse, Lord said.

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“A lot of people think there is something mystical about it, but there isn’t,” she said. “It’s truly common sense. If you’re kind to the horse, the horse will respond better.”

Lord and other trainers throughout Ventura County have noticed the change in approach over the last decade.

“We’re in an era now when the horse industry is beginning to move away from breaking horses,” Frazier said. “The philosophy is not to make a horse do things, but to get a horse to want to do things.”

Frazier has trained several hundred out-of-control horses using his gentle--yet firm--technique. Many have been saved from death and are serving as children’s or show horses.

“A horse whisperer is somebody that listens to horses and somebody that has the ability then to get a horse to listen to them,” Frazier said.

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Although trainers for some time have been moving away from beating horses into submission, the gentler technique has only recently come to the attention of many people outside the field, through Nicholas Evans’ book “The Horse Whisperer” and Robert Redford’s soon-to-be-released movie of the same name.

“This will be the system everyone will be using in the future, more and more so, without a doubt,” Frazier said.

Veterinarians also say nonviolent techniques are preferable.

“With horses, you have to be firm,” said Matt Bailey, an Ojai veterinarian. “Some horses may occasionally require a little bit more force but . . . everyone’s better off when you use gentler handling.”

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But getting an animal to think about what it is doing, rather than just react to something, is not easy--especially when the animal is a horse that weighs 1,500 pounds and is considered so dangerous that it should be put to death or out to pasture.

Charley’s behavior may have been a result of doing too much too young, and of abuse from previous owners.

He hit the track as a 2-year-old, and soon was being used in roping.

“Everyone who ever had him, gave up on him. . . . And whenever he would do something wrong, somebody would beat the hell out of him,” said Eneriz, Charley’s owner. “He never knew how to react when you’d give him positives.”

Frazier said he incorporates techniques he learned while studying psychology at Cal State Fresno in training horses. Many of his methods are comparable to behavior-modification techniques used with people.

“You can make a kid go to school, but you can’t make him learn,” said Frazier, 50, a state and national riding champion who began training horses in Fillmore when he was 10.

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“But you put that kid out digging ditches or picking up trash, and they decide school’s not such a bad idea.”

And that’s what Frazier did when a 2-year-old gelding quarter horse named Cadence, who came to him eight months ago without any training, refused to heed him recently at his 45-acre Somis ranch: He put Cadence to work, making him run around the pen until he was ready to listen.

When Cadence tired of running in a circle, he stopped and turned his right ear toward Frazier, apparently indicating he was ready to cooperate.

Without the use of a halter or lead rope, Frazier was then able to express to Cadence--through hand gestures, body language and words--when he wanted him to back up, step forward, step sideways, walk, gallop and stop.

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For example, if he wanted Cadence to step sideways, he’d move his hand sideways. To make the horse go backward, he’d move his hand back, like a traffic cop. To make the horse walk toward him, he’d hold his body in a more open position and signal with his hand for the horse to come forward.

Every time Cadence responded appropriately, Frazier rewarded him with affection, and the few times the horse refused, the trainer put him back to work.

“I don’t believe in punishment, I believe in consequences,” Frazier said.