Sonita - an ode to Ray Hunt, 8/31/29 - 3/12/09

Early on in our life together Sonita decided she would tolerate my nonsense, but she was not putting up with anyone else.
I found this out the hard way when I was showing off my new saddle to my step-daughter, Jill. We were meeting with a group of friends to work cattle and Sonita was saddled and tied at my trailer.

"It looks really nice," she said, "can I sit in it?"

"Sure, you want me to slip a bridle on Sonita?"

"I'll just hop on, I just want to sit in it."

Jill ran her hand down Sonita's neck and reached for the stirrup.

Sonita squealed and struck forward with her hind foot.

"Yow!" Jill jumped back as the hoof whistled past her knee.

Jill stared at me with her mouth open. I pretty much stared at her with the same expression.
My sweet little three-year-old ground her teeth, pinned her ears and snapped her tail.

"Is she always like this?"

"I really don't know. Now that I think about it, nobody else has been on her. Let me untie her and bridle her, maybe she wasn't expecting you," I answered.

I dropped her halter and Sonita took her bit willingly enough. Jill took the reins and put them over her neck. As soon as she put a hand on her neck and took the stirrup with the other Sonita squealed again and struck out with her forefoot. She turned her head slightly towards Jill, her nostrils drawn up and her teeth bared with menace.

"You know, I'll look at your saddle another day. You've got your hands full with this one," Jill shook her head and walked back to her trailer, to collect her own, quiet, mannerly gelding.

I stepped up to the saddle. Sonita stood relaxed and comfortable.

I grabbed the horn and yanked back and forth hard.

She whacked her tail a time or two and gave me a dirty look, but she had a point. As soon as I quit she relaxed.

I got on and we rode to the arena, calm and happy.

I was enough of a trainer at that point I understood the problems a "one-man-horse" was going to give me. First of all, she was going to be pretty tough to sell. Second, a horse needs to have manners and accept the cards dealt to them if they're going to have a chance in this world.

I wasn't flattered or proud of the fact she wouldn't let anybody else on her. I was embarrassed. Somehow I was failing this horse and I had to get her straightened out.

Once we got home I tried a few more times to get somebody on my rotten little filly. Her reaction was always the same. She made it clear she was going to get violent.

The advice I got was always the same.
"You have to let her know who's boss. Put somebody up there who can take her on and let them knock some sense into her."

I am not adverse to making a horse "see the light" if I think it will fix my problem. But I was just beginning to get good enough to understand Ray Hunt and I was very seriously studying his methods.

One of my greatest teachers had been my good horse Mort. I wasn't able to force him to do anything. When I learned to ask, he had given me the world. Finding Ray Hunt had helped me understand why it had worked and given me safe training techniques for almost every horse I had worked with since.

Sonita kept finding ways to remind me I hadn't quite gotten a handle on my equine communication skills. It still didn't seem like the answer was to knock some sense into her.

I just let things muddle for a while and tried to pay close attention to what set Sonita off. Her anxiety levels were through the roof. She hated change. If you moved her feeder she would refuse to eat out of it for days. Although she hated every horse who was stalled next to her, she would go crazy when one moved and another replaced it.

"You need to face facts. That mare's never going to let anybody handle her but you," my boss told me with the eternal smirk he had on his face when he talked about Sonita barely under control.

I chose to ignore him and kept on thinking.

Finally, I came up with an idea. I got Sonita out one day and just ran her through the mill. I worked her as hard as her young body could take. She was dripping with sweat and blowing hard by the time I was ready to cool her out.

"Hey Kidlette!" I called my young daughter, "Hop on Sonita and cool her out!"

Kidlette came running over, excited and proud to get a chance on my horse.

"Get on quick so you don't get bit," I told her.

Before Sonita had a chance to react, I tossed the kidlette up on her back and off they went. Sonita pinned her ears and shook her head, but was too tired to do anything more.

Kidlette walked around quiet, on a loose rein and cooled her out, Sonita relaxed more and more into her.

It became a regular pattern. Before long Sonita learned that riding with the kidlette was a lot more fun than riding with me.

I started to let my daughter warm her up for me. It still went well.

Then I asked my friend and client Crystal to give it a try. Crystal was an adult. She knew Sonita well. She looked at me like I was crazy.

So I started over the same way. I worked the tar out of her and gave her to Crystal. She hopped on quick, not trusting the teeth and they walked off. It went fine. My boss came out and watched them putter around the stable yard together.

"I guess she's not such a one-man horse after all," I said.

"Guess not," he replied. He looked like I'd spit in his Cheerios.

Ray Hunt died a few days ago. He wasn't a personal friend, just a man who spoke to me long enough to influence the way I interacted with horse for the rest of my life. I can't tell you how sad I felt when I read about his passing.

I found this article on the Internet. I reprinted it here, I felt like it said it all.

Ray Hunt by Rob Oakes
March 15, 2009 6:45 pm


We all have our Ray Hunt memories and stories. Mine all go something like this, “I once rode with Ray Hunt, and it changed my life.” Yours might be similar. In fact, many of Ray Hunt stories I’ve heard start in much the same way and conclude in similar manner. In fact, I’ve found that after some repetition that the stories are eerily familiar. They typically involve a “problem,” an old man who watches and listens from a fence, a bit of conversation, and a “solution.” They might happen one-on-one or amongst a crowd of hundreds. But despite their similarities, every recollection is important and tremendously personal.

Why? What makes a seriously gruff and short-spoken cowboy so special? After all, he didn’t carry formal education or degrees. He didn’t possess a pristine competition record. Yet nearly every trainer, rider, con man and huckster I’ve ever met will go out of their way to talk about their “Ray Hunt moment.”

The man himself was bold, brilliant, often controversial and occasionally brutal in his honesty or criticism; as he liked to say, “I’m here for the horse.” Everything else was secondary. Sure, helping improve communication and understanding paid a rich dividend, but Ray wanted no misunderstanding: he was the horse’s representative and advocate. And for an individual who sought description or honor like oil seeks water, it was one of the few titles he ever claimed.

What made Ray important were his ideas and vision. A vision composed of thousands of tools, notions or thoughts. Each one, ultimately, a detail that could significantly impact a horse and human relationship. As a result, every Ray Hunt story includes wisdom, cryptic mutterings, and smashed bits of where Zen simplicity met Western practicality at high speed.

“Fix it up and let [the horse] learn it.”

“Make the wrong thing difficult and the right thing easy.”

“When a horse is right on his feet, he’s right in his head.”

“Control the life in the body, so then the mind gets it. When the mind understands, then the feet to understand.”

Ray spoke a language that was utterly his own, and it could be irritatingly difficult to parse. After all, what does life mean (beyond the obvious)? If the head gets it, then of course the feet are going to get it. The head controls the feet. The language was philosophical, poetic and far too practical. That is, until deciphered, after which it was simply perfect.

Going to see Ray wasn’t purely an educational experience, but also a social and sometimes spiritual one. Everywhere he went, he attracted the curious, the devout and the desperate in the hope that he could help them solve their “problems.” For those who came in the right frame of mind, the results could be utterly transformational. As the man sat on his horse to speaks, mutter and criticize; a new world might open for those present. A point of view where the horse is treasured teacher, mentor and friend. And while it might have been a profoundly personal, it was something to both see and share.

Today, as we mark Ray’s passing, I find that I already miss the future pilgrimages which will never be. But even though Ray Hunt has left the stage; he is hardly gone. Forty years of travel, teaching and muttering have ensured that the his ideas and legend will never die. The advocate did his job and shared the horse’s message. So while the new “Ray Hunt” moments might not involve old men and fences, that’s okay. There will still be new Ray Hunt moments.