My Brethren Whisperer

I want to gossip about my fellow Whisperers so we might as well start with HorseWhisperer.com's, Frank Bell. Now I know Frank from the WildHorse Workshops and I think he is quite charming. He has very controlled body language which gets the attention and cooperation of almost any horse. Frank is a dyed-in-the-wool horse clinician, trotting about the country selling his time and paraphernalia to people that get a pretty good value for their dollars. He never takes me seriously though because I am always broke. What can I say?

I scraped up enough money to pay for a set of his videos. They were nicely done, but they were poorly reproduced so every one of them did that rolling thing that gives you a headache to watch. I wrote to him about it and he said to try them on a different VCR. Well, it took about a year to get one near a different VCR and, yep, it did the same thing. By then I felt it was pointless to hassle about it. Since I have a little trail-riding / clinic facility developing at my place, I just thought to get even with him, I will just leave them on the library shelf and if anyone comes here and tries to watch them they will be classically conditioned to get a headache when they think of Frank Bell's name. Why even now, my head is starting to pound!

This is regretful because I personally approve of this fellow Whisperer. He is involved with Barbara Wrights work with ESCT which is like a treatment for Post-Traumatic Stess Disorder for horses (I am going to write about her sooner or later). In a horse clinician, you never know if innovation is real or just snake oil, but if ESCT works, it's a very good thing for traumatized horses. I bought Barbara's CD (which didn't work right either, but she replaced it with NO QUESTIONS ASKED!)and have been experimenting with it myself. They are marketing a thing to rhythmically pulse the headstall as a way to calm down the animal. Look for details on his website for the clinic they are doing in Colorado this summer. I'd go, but you know... no dinero.

Another really impressive thing about Frank is his attention and honor to John Sharp, the old Oregon mustanger, who has seen it all and done it all. Frank learned everything he could from John because Frank recognized a treasure trove of knowledge when he saw it. The net result is that Frank brings to the table some insight gleaned from the horseworld as it will never exist again.

Frank must have a soft spot in his heart for mustangs, which is another plus with me. I don't think mustangs are a very lucrative sector of the horse market, but he donates some of his time to the Wildhorse Workshop, helping horses get ready for adoption. The Wildhorse Workshops are a lot of fun, go if you get a chance. If you see Frank there, tell him that the HinnyWhisperer said hello. Don't expect him to smile about it.




Hey, look at at that! I signed up to be a HorseWhisperer affiliate and I get a little commission on sales. Go buy some stuff and sign up for his clinics. You will learn something... ask some deeper questions and you might entice him to talk about the more interesting and esoteric stuff he knows. There is a lot going on in that mind, but he's not going to trot it out for everyday use.

The Hinny Whisperer approves of the HorseWhisperer, Frank Bell for
• being mustang-friendly,
• studying under a true living legend, and
• having effective teaching methods to help people work better with their horses.