The Story of Buck

Last night I watched the documentary Buck. Several of my friends have told me to watch it as it is one of the best movies they have ever seen. Contrary to what most of you think. I am one of the most open minded people alive. I've learned to walk down the proverbial middle of the road about just about everything before I make up my mind. So now if you've read this far you might as well know you're going to get my review of the movie Buck.

Contrary to whatever you think about the life he has lead and his childhood. He is not all that extra-ordinary. I'm sure that there are several successful businessmen all across the country that were abused as children as well. You see it gives you a different perspective on life, or your life anyway. One thing he said that rings home for sure, it tends to make you live in the moment. Living a solitary childhood is also the norm for abused children. Staying out of the line of fire, and not having many if any childhood friends also seem to be the case with all children who are abused. Frankly Buck was lucky. He was removed from the house at age 12 and got to escape the hell he had been living in. Some of us have to endure it until we are old enough to leave on our own.

While I do agree somewhat that as horse trainers go, he may be rare, but as horsemen go, he is far from rare. Ranchers all over this country have been training horses the gentle way for years, and will be for years to come. Financially successful horse trainers spend months away from home. That is nothing special. In 2008 I was away from home 36weeks with a load of horses. You have to have an incredible support team at home to make that work. The profit margin sucks. You wear out trucks and trailers and yourself. You wake up some mornings and look in the mirror and you can see all 80 thousand miles that you've been on the road in the last 12 months in the tracks of your face. I was impressed he actually aired the portion of the show that showed the renegade horse, and I was even more impressed that he had the balls to blame it on the human. Most horse problems are propagated by their humans.

So I guess you can say I wasn't that impressed with Buck the movie. Having lived that life for almost 30 years I guess I didn't see anything too extra-ordinary in what he does. In my horse training career I was lucky enough to achieve all of the goals that I set out to. In my case it was without question time to make a change.