THE HORSE WHISPERER

John and I saw a movie last night called Buck. This was the life story of the original horse whisperer who describes his brutally abusive young life with his alcoholic father. He talks about using his knowledge of how he felt living in terror to understand how horses feel when humans try to break them. He felt that he had a true sense of the horse’s feelings and reactions because of his own suffering.

In one particularly moving scene a women brings a young colt to one of Bucks clinics because he bites and kicks anyone who comes near him. This colt was orphaned during a difficult birth during which he was deprived of oxygen. He was eventually revived and hand raised by his owner. In the end, Buck recommends that the young horse be put down because he is so volatile and unpredictable.

In the movie, he scolds his audience with his view that the problem horse always has problem human handler (s).  I thought, “maybe the horse was not able to tolerate contact due to altered brain chemistry caused by his birth hypoxia”.

I found myself thinking defensively and with compassion about the owners in this movie, much as I do about my parents and myself.  Did we pass along bad genes and make bad decisions unconsciously that allowed us to replicate our family of origin or did Andrew’s suffering come from a prenatal injury related to maternal rejection syndrome or both or neither. For that matter, what causes the Maternal Fetal Rejection Syndrome and who thought up that name?