Gaffney, Ginger. Half Broke. New York: Norton. 2020. Print
At first it seemed like just another ranch asking me to help. Training horses and educating their owners has been my job for the last twenty years ...
This particular ranch is a prison. Most of the residents living here are multiple offenders, felons.
Description:
Sometimes you come across a book that is so honest and open in its writing style that the people and actions portrayed just seem more real and compelling than usual. Ginger Gafney is a writer with this kind of voice. She is a real-life horse trainer who shares her thoughts and fears with us in a simple, quiet voice.
Her memoir, Half Broke, is a wonderfully full of raw, down-to-the-bone descriptions and observations of her voluteer work with prisoners serving time on a ranch-style facility in New Mexico. These felons are mostly drug abusers and dealers, men and women who have served countless years in correctional facilities, foster care, and abusive relationships.
Gafney works with a small group of these damaged individuals to teach them how to train difficult horses to accept human contact and be gentled into ridability for their owners. The horses themselves have been donated or loaned to the ranch because the animals have also suffered some trauma in their lives and have become wildly afraid of or aggressive towards humans. Two of these horses ran free within the facility's walls because after being hastily dropped off, they never could be caught, much less harnessed. For two years they charged, bit, and kicked any prisoner who came near them, despite the painful and gaping wound one of them had received during the off-loading from their trailer.
Gafney slowly introduces her group of prisoners to the necessity of understanding horses and their needs. She explains how the horses are ultra sensitive to presence and posture, so first teaches the men and women how to walk with non-threatening confidence, to quietly approach the animal when it allows them, and to touch and groom it gently. Eventually, the prison group softens themselves, become less aggressive, and stand straighter and more calmly when they deal with other prisoners on the ranch.
Gafney herself reveals her own troubled childhood. She refused to speak until she was six years old, preferring the quiet of hidden places where she could be alone in silence. A gift horse changed her life as she cared for it, learning how it was aware of her every action and word, and both girl and horse responded accordingly. Gafney learned everything she could about training horses and chose that for her profession.
It's not exactly a feel good story as there are plenty of setbacks with horses and people alike. But the overall picture shown by Gafney is an honest portrayal of her real-life situation full of damaged people and animals, as well as the triumphs each experiences. Her writing pulls you deeply into this environment as it teaches you about people and horses learning to exist among the challenges of their own trauma. As Gafney says about herself (and maybe speaks for others at the ranch):
Her memoir, Half Broke, is a wonderfully full of raw, down-to-the-bone descriptions and observations of her voluteer work with prisoners serving time on a ranch-style facility in New Mexico. These felons are mostly drug abusers and dealers, men and women who have served countless years in correctional facilities, foster care, and abusive relationships.
Gafney works with a small group of these damaged individuals to teach them how to train difficult horses to accept human contact and be gentled into ridability for their owners. The horses themselves have been donated or loaned to the ranch because the animals have also suffered some trauma in their lives and have become wildly afraid of or aggressive towards humans. Two of these horses ran free within the facility's walls because after being hastily dropped off, they never could be caught, much less harnessed. For two years they charged, bit, and kicked any prisoner who came near them, despite the painful and gaping wound one of them had received during the off-loading from their trailer.
Gafney slowly introduces her group of prisoners to the necessity of understanding horses and their needs. She explains how the horses are ultra sensitive to presence and posture, so first teaches the men and women how to walk with non-threatening confidence, to quietly approach the animal when it allows them, and to touch and groom it gently. Eventually, the prison group softens themselves, become less aggressive, and stand straighter and more calmly when they deal with other prisoners on the ranch.
Gafney herself reveals her own troubled childhood. She refused to speak until she was six years old, preferring the quiet of hidden places where she could be alone in silence. A gift horse changed her life as she cared for it, learning how it was aware of her every action and word, and both girl and horse responded accordingly. Gafney learned everything she could about training horses and chose that for her profession.
It's not exactly a feel good story as there are plenty of setbacks with horses and people alike. But the overall picture shown by Gafney is an honest portrayal of her real-life situation full of damaged people and animals, as well as the triumphs each experiences. Her writing pulls you deeply into this environment as it teaches you about people and horses learning to exist among the challenges of their own trauma. As Gafney says about herself (and maybe speaks for others at the ranch):
I know I belong. All our troubles, all our inadequacies, we wear them on the outside. There are no perfect, pretty people at the ranch. We are the ugly, the difficult, the invisible, the broken. Nothing is hidden. It is why horses have always been easy for me. They're honest. They show me exactly how they feel.
____________________
If this book interests you, be sure to check out:
If this book interests you, be sure to check out:
de Clermont-Tonnerre, Laura. The Mustang.
Here's a first for me: recommending a movie rather than a book. The Mustang is a fictionalized portrayal of the real-life prison program where wild mustangs are rounded up to be tamed and trained by prisoners. Portrays a similar environment, people, and challenges presented in Half Broke.
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