Destination: Hunter Valley NSW

It’s Not About the Horse

Stetson just stood there. Occasionally his mannequin demeanour was broken with a lick of the lips and a blink of the eye.

“That’s his left brain working, “says Diamond, “Keep the horse thinking in the left brain. That means comfort. Right brain is for fear and we don’t want to go there.”

Diamond Porter is straight out of a Clint Eastwood western. Tall, lanky, ruggedly handsome with a Wild Bill Hickok moustache and goatee, Diamond (real name Dennis) is the equine version of a shaman. His immaculate western shirt and hat is neatly set off with a trademark red neckerchief.

Diamond is a ‘horse whisperer’ and, by all accounts, a darn good one. Now, for those who saw the 1998 movie with Robert Redford, you will know about this mystical art of equine communication.

Modestly, Diamond distances himself from Tom Booker (played by Redford) who healed an injured and traumatised girl and her horse. But he maintains the principles are real.

“Someone will bring me a horse (to train) and say ‘I can’t even get near her in the paddock, she’s just like her mother’” says Diamond, “and you can bet your bottom dollar they owned the mother too.”

“People still train horses like they did one hundred, even two hundred years ago. It’s these ignorance-driven practices that leave us with neurotic horses and frustrated owners.”

“Here, I train, no ed-u-cate, people not horses. Horses already know what to do. It’s the people who need to learn.”

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And in the next hour, our horse whisperer demonstrates the techniques used to obtain consent from a horse to do our bidding. Stetson, canters on the merest suggestion, trots at a wink and stops dead at a barely raised finger. You’d almost think our beautiful chestnut gelding was a remote-control animatronic. There’s no raised voices, no gunshot cracks of the whip and no stressed animal or ‘trainer’ – oops ‘ed-u-cator’.

Now Diamond mounts Stetson and the two trot about the ring like a single entity in perfect balance.

“If I want him to stop, I don’t pull on the rein, I just hold it up and bring down the energy from the sky. He knows. He stops,” says Diamond plainly, but starting to sound a bit ‘hippy’, “it might sound mystical and, well … it is.”

“The same principles apply to how you run a business,” continues Diamond, alluding to the parallel discipline of personal development he offers as an adjunct to “natural horsemanship”.

“A boss who runs a company through fear of punishment will only ever get a mediocre result at best. Employees, like horses, will always seek comfort in this situation. If they’re doing what they’re supposed to do, then leave’em alone! Let’em get on with it.”

Our demonstration is just that; a brief introduction to natural management where the horse (or employee) is treated with compassion and respect and allowed to perform with the minimum amount of external influence.

Diamond’s slogan “it’s not about the horse” is a potent metaphor for our own lives, both personally and in business. Look in the mirror. Maybe the problem is staring you in the face!

For bookings and demonstration times:

Diamond Porter’s Horse Whispering
294 O’Connors Rd, Pokolbin NSW 2320
ph: (02) 4991 1123
Email: colleen@dphorsewhispering.com.au
www.diamondportershorsewhispering.com.au