A Documentary
by
Ben Masters
"When I first met trainer Lanny Leach, I instantly knew that he was a horseman. ...Lanny didn't brag about the broncs he had ridden or the ranches he had worked on. He just communicated what needed to be conveyed in the simplest way possible. His intent was not in his words but in his tone and body language. ...Hour after hour Lanny expanded our equine body - language vocabulary from that of scared toddlers to confident pickup artists. Like any guy who leaves a bar with dashed hopes, we learned: be timid and they won't respect you; be too aggressive and they will never trust you. ...The techniques Lanny had taught us for taming the horses and gaining their trust had paid off."
Jonny Fitzsimons, Unbranded, Texas A&M University Press, 2015
"Picking Out The Herd."
"Lanny Leach was a seasoned hand with decades of horse training experience throughout the Southwest. He had been on thousands of horses and his discerning eye was the deciding factor in picking out our horses. ...We needed the more mature, fully developed horses to with stand the physical rigors of the trip. We started with 200 gelding mustangs between the ages of four and ten. We didn't want mares. Lanny said they were meaner than geldings. ...Lanny was by far the most experienced horseman and he made the cuts. ...We sorted out 25 of the best horses from the original 200. Then Lanny's experienced eye searched every inch of horseflesh and noted things that I would have missed. ...After a full day of sorting, we loaded 11 stout, well-disposed, great-looking mustangs into trailers and headed to Texas to begin training. ... we will forever be indebted to Lanny Leach and his meticulous eye for horse flesh. His judgment was crucial to the success of our trip.
Ben Masters, Unbranded, Texas A&M University Press, 2015
Lanny Leach - His criteria for picking the mustangs. "What's neat about horses is that they'll show you on the outside what's in their inside. ...You don't want the biggest, toughest horse that's bossing everyone around but don't want the horse that gets picked on either. I look for horses in the middle of the bunch, horses that get respect and give respect. ...You can tell al lot about a horse by looking at it's head. ...You want gentle eyes. Hair swirls on their face tell you a lot. ...How a mustang reacts to pressure in the pens is important. ...The physical conformation of the mustangs was the most important factor in choosing the horses. ...Usually mustangs have pretty good feet because if they don't they die in the wild."
Lanny's training. "The first 30 days of horse training are the most crucial because you're establishing the foundation for the horses habits. It's the beginning of the right things or the beginning of the wrong things. ...My training methods are the same for all horses but extra caution needs to be taken around mustangs. ...With wild horses, you really have to be mentally on top of your game and always in the right spot. ...My objective is to gentle a horse and get it to begin to respond in a way that it starts to trust me. Each horse is an individual and I progress the training methods as they each learn."
Lanny Leach, Unbranded, Texas A&M University Press, 2015
