Horse whisperer to teach Harry his secrets
Prince will learn about trainer’s work helping traumatised veterans
PRINCE HARRY will meet the man who inspired The Horse Whisperer to learn about his pioneering methods to help traumatised soldiers.
Monty Roberts will teach Harry his secrets when the two meet at the Queen’s Sandringham estate.
Roberts, 81, said the 32-year-old prince, who left the Army last year, was keen to experience how working with horses could help former soldiers tackle post-traumatic stress disorder.
The Californian cowboy’s work has already helped transform the lives of US veterans with psychological prob- lems, or what Roberts calls “hidden wounds”. He said: “The prince has learned of this work and wanted to get a greater understanding. It will be an honour to show him.”
Roberts, who has been a trusted adviser to the Queen on her horses and corgis for more than a quarter of a century, became known as the “real horse whisperer” when his book on non-violent training methods was published. He was said to be the inspiration behind the character Tom Booker in Nicholas Evans’s bestselling book The Horse Whisperer, which was adapted into a film with Robert Redford in the title role — although Evans has since claimed he met Roberts only once and based the character on several different people.
Roberts has developed a three-day programme, called Horse Sense And Healing, to help veterans. He said: “I call it ‘join-up’. It is a way of communicating with a horse and offers a power- ful tool to help deal effectively with the emotional trauma of combat stress and the resulting anger, social withdrawal and mistrust. Experiencing a ‘join-up’, and the all-important moment of causing a horse to trust you, can be a powerful catalyst for finding hope and positivity as part of their recovery.
“Horses act as a mirror for a person’s emotions, and participants quickly tune in as to how to manage their reactions and responses — useful tools which can be used to cope with everyday life, confront painful memories and progress their recovery.
“It is humbling to watch how moving and transformational even such a short interaction with a horse can be.” On the Queen, Roberts said: “I owe Her Majesty everything. If she hadn’t pushed me, I would still be a cowboy from Salinas and the world would not know about my methods of training horses with non violence.”
They still regularly talk about all things equine. “She always takes my calls,” he said. “Every year, two, three, four times a year that we get together, we discuss what’s happened, we discuss what we want to do.”
Roberts and his team are looking for the UK’s trickiest horse. Apply for your horse to feature in a demonstration at intelligenthorsemanship.co.uk