Unruly Horses Make Gentle Transition At Hayden Ranch

Alice Jordan witnessed the whippings and cringed at the hog-tied feet.

She wasn’t a horse trainer. So she trusted bronco busters and their forceful expertise to tame her animals. Until her so-called tame, half-ton black quarter horse, Classy, threw her, breaking her shoulder.

It was the last straw. Last spring, Alice sentenced Classy to boarding school as she would an incorrigible child. At the Full Circle Ranch in Hayden, Classy and Alice reached detente, thanks to natural horsemanship.

“I like their method so much, I’d like to see it used a lot more in this area,” Alice says, as her powerful mare trots into an enclosed travel trailer that terrified the horse a few months ago. “These guys treat horses with kindness, respect, love.”

Bill Basham and Betsy Hoermann accept her praise with a slight nod, much the way they communicate with the horses they train. They don’t need whips because they “speak” horse - and that’s the key to working with the big-hearted animals, they say.

“If I can ask her politely, then why shouldn’t I?” Bill says, stroking Classy on the white strip between her eyes. “To me, respect has no fear in it.”

Horses were a natural for Bill and Betsy. They’re kind, hard-working people who expect honesty and fairness from the world.

“People are the only species on earth who have learned to lie. I just detest deceit,” Bill says. It’s easy to read disgust in the stream of tobacco juice he spits.

Bill is 46 and as cowboy as it comes, from his fringed, leather chaps to his silver, American Quarter Horse Association belt buckle. A battered black felt hat sags over his sunburned face and scraggly ponytail. His fingernails are as blackened and bruised as his boots.

He talks in lazy circles and tight-lipped Betsy lets him. She’s more comfortable with horses than people.

They met in Colorado a year ago where both had gone to learn about natural horsemanship. Until then, horses hadn’t played a major role in either of their lives.

Betsy was a dental hygienist turned hermit. She left Massachusetts in 1982 in search of solitude and landed in Switzerland. Work there on a dairy farm, and occasionally exercising horses, left her strong, lean and deeply satisfied. She stayed 14 years.

Bill escaped from Oklahoma’s farm country after high school, eager to live. He began in Chicago as a commercial photographer, then pursued a degree in industrial safety, then headed to French culinary school and the East Coast. He was working in silk suits as a maitre d’ and wine steward when a friend’s death jolted him into scrutinizing his life.

He decided he needed a slower pace and headed west until he reached Colorado five years ago.

“The people in Colorado seemed nice, real, healthy,” he says.”I’d probably have to be brain dead before anyone could get me back to a big city.”

In the Wild West, he bought a horse for hunting, and another to carry his gear. Horses were easy, he figured. Saddle ‘em, mount ‘em and ride.

He learned otherwise when his second horse threw him onto a cement driveway and kicked him. The beating separated Bill’s sternum, bruised his heart and kidneys and ignited his burning need to understand the animal he’d underestimated.

Horse trainers didn’t provide the connection he wanted. Force was their training tool.

“If that’s what it took, I couldn’t do it,” he says. “That’s not who I want to be as a person.”

He kept digging until he heard about trainers who used psychology on horses. The concept fascinated him.

Bill hooked up with Pat Parelli, an internationally known trainer who wrote a book on natural horsemanship.

Natural training originated with the Spanish vaqueros. These early cowboys used less physical pressure to rein their horses than it took to snap a horse hair.

They studied herd behavior - how horses picked a leader, interacted with each other, reacted to fear. Then the vaqueros found human equivalents for each expression.

The gentle touch evolved into a training technique that’s grown wildly popular in the last few years and even attracted Hollywood’s attention. Robert Redford is in production now on “The Horse Whisperer,” about a man with an empathy for horses.

Bill embraced natural horsemanship like a long-lost friend. It was sensible, humane, and respectful. It required intelligence, keen observation and insight. It satisfied his brain as well as his heart.

Best of all, it worked.

“It’s all in attitude. There’s no cookbook,” he says. “Each horse has its own hang-ups. Everything is individualized.”

Shortly after Bill found Parelli, Betsy arrived at the Colorado training ranch, drawn by a flier she’d found on natural horsemanship.

“Three days there took my heart,” she says.

They learned that horses are prey, startle easily and especially protect their legs, ears and underbelly. Leaders are the horses that know where to find food and safety.

Betsy and Bill learned to stare like a horse and wag their fingers the way horses flutter their ears. They learned to read tail swishes and tongue licks, head dips and skin shivers.

Then Bill decided to open a ranch in Hayden, a place just populated enough to support him without crowding him. He invited Betsy to join him.

“Our goal is to help horses and people live together better,” he says. “Most people treat them like ATVs (all terrain vehicles) and they deserve better.”

The Full Circle’s stalls have stayed full since it opened last March.

“Their method, it’s growing,” Alice says as she watches Bill run Classy through some exercises. “But there are too many horses that haven’t seen it.”

“Come on, girlfriend,” Bill croons at Classy.

The horse veers away and Bill admits she’s not his yet. He tosses a rope at the ground behind her to spur her to trot and then canter. She’d rather stand, he explains, but he’ll keep her running until she shows him the respect he wants.

After a few laps, he stops her and Classy’s tongue emerges as if she’s spitting something out. It’s the sign of respect Bill has been waiting for.

He stands squarely in front of her and stares, holding his hands mid-clap and wagging his fingers slightly. Classy backs up until he stops. He walks to her side and stares at her hip. She turns.

He slips onto her bare back and seems still. But he’s subtly flexed a muscle that triggers her to move sideways.

The exercises aren’t meaningless, Betsy says.

“They work a horse’s mind and let them make decisions. They’re better than just running them.”

The Full Circle takes six to 12 horses at one time, depending on the severity of the cases. Like people with abusive pasts, some horses are unreachable. Bill and Betsy have had two they couldn’t help.

They ask owners to train along with their horses. Their techniques mean nothing if horses return to owners who can’t communicate with them.

Bill and Betsy are content now. At 40, Betsy’s finally found the visceral connection she needs.

Bill’s discovered what it means to live.

“I am so happy where I am,” he says. “I’ve got a feeling this may be what I’ll finish my life with.”

, DataTimes ILLUSTRATION: 2 Photos (1 Color)