Monty, our hero

One of the highlights of doing our horsemanship course directly at the Flag is Up Farm was to meet Monty Roberts in person. Monty is turning 80 years old in May, but you'd never guess. He made his demonstrations exactly as if he were 40 years younger.

He was working on a young stallion that spooked and ran off while still tied to the long line. Monty held on, seemlessly, and stopped the horse. It's happened to me a few times and it sure hurts (you can jam your back and you get hand burns from the line running through your fingers). Just to up the stakes, at the end of the demonstration he told the audience he had decided to introduce a new concept '80 at 80' and preceded to do 80 push ups in front of everyone. Seriously, I can't even do one.

Monty was really happy to have someone come all the way from India to take the course. He knows there is a lot of work to be done to help horses in Asia and there are so far no MR certified instructors there. He went to India a few years ago, invited by the Brooks Institute to go and talk to horsemen but he said he only wanted to talk to the women. With so much knowledge transferred through mothers, he thought that's a good place to start.