Gary, without realising it, has opened up a universal can of worms, of sore 
 feelings which are in effect, his raw material, with which he is recourceful. 
 Using the video we can join in the struggle to make sense of what others 
 discard write off and throw away. 

Gary Witheford is such a man. We become resourceful economic and effective 
when, like Gary, we bring our primordial and intuitive sense of feeling, timing and understanding to retrieve what would otherwise be wasted, thrown away. 

B mad  like horses we are social animals, prone to friendship / cheat..a refuge for battered horses 

We, like horses, are social animals, prone to friendship, born with a tendency to live and work together. 

Yet when we cheat or lie or know best, and get away with it, we create a stressed and morbid environment in which a particular horse (or person) goes sick; that someone else does not find it stressful and depressing does not alter the experience of the person who does. 

Gary’s stable are a refuge for physically emotionally and psychologically battered horses, casualties in a war of nerves with their enemies, those who act toward them as a friend would not. 

When an owner is in a bad mood the horse knows it, intuitively; he finds himself saddled with his owners depression; handicapped like that he, the horse not the owner, is seen as delinquent and unwittingly becomes one; so is born a cycle of doom and gloom, despair and despondency. 

Mad, she says, can't get near him, can't do nothing with him. She could, if she had the nous, own him, relate to him and say, I don’t understand what’s up with him. 

Saying that a horse is mad and must be sold, treated or shot is pathetic, hideous and sick. The horse is not mad, but simply does not know where he is with his 
owner. Does he know he is not likely to survive in that place, or if he even wants to. 

He is confused and shows it in the only way open to him; he bites rears up or has his owner on the floor, and in his rage could kill him; and who would blame him. 

When we are confused depressed inhibited or bloodyminded we are probably 
obliged to someone who virtually owns us; they are disappointed and label us mad bad or sad for failing their expectations, for having let them down. 

C. ring is an encounter zone and something happens.. body language shows what’s going on see how he is .. G’s confidence.. nothing that can’t be put right  

Gary recognises that a hurt and worried horse is not delinquent but is intelligent, full of equine potential; he encounters him as he is and something happens; they 
share a dynamic energy, enough for the horse to recover from the indignity of being despised and wasted; and it works. 

Their body language is public; there is no mystery, no secrecy, no privacy, no 
confidentiality, no private language; anyone can see what’s going on, and in doing that joins in what’s happening 

Gary brings a total and willing committment with no thought of failure, no fear, no safety net and no claims if it all goes wrong. With that confidence there is nothing that can’t be put right, no irrepairable damage. The horse is only blighted and trusting Gary and his own judgement of what’s happening will repair himself. 

Gary goes up to the horse to see how he is. He knows and the horse knows how things are. This is intimacy, a dynamic relationship and it makes sense and it works 

Gary couldn’t do it if he was locked into a so called fearful professional body; nor if he needed case studies, written reports, background information, a file of facts or psychoanalytic hogwash of what’s supposed to be wrong. 

D. Geoffrey 

By affirming and encouraging him Gary enables the horse to reclaim his confidence. This is an act of faith on his, the horses part; he must defy everything that is said of him and realise that Gary recognises and values him, and is not a terrorist. So we like Geoffrey, regenerate our own sense of identity to become functioning people. 

We can affirm and encourage each other and gradually come to realise 

what we bring to life is good...know that for ourselves 
and  
we are survivors.. those who won’t give up 
and  
we are resourceful and generate whatever is called for 
and  
we know what we feel and own mind, and act on it. 
and  
we must be credible where ever we live or work or learn 

E. taught ‘em, no thought of the implications of what we do, expedient to get on, cut the corners, risk casualties  

What we teach horses is one thing; but what we were taught, and in turn taught our children and now they theirs is something else. So with the hurt horses we are taught, we teach each other to mistrust our own feelings. 

As children we had to accept what we are told, cloned in effect; if obedient we were preferred protected and spoiled; if not we were catagorised and branded defective and inadequate, written off and wasted that way. 

They taught me to be a high flier, an important person, someone who really 
mattered, who could pull rabbits out of a hat and make promises out of thin air. 

They taught me not to reason why, nor make reply and always apologise but never never challenge that intimidating Kafkesque authority against which there is no appeal, no antidote, and about which nothing, apparently, can be done. 

They taught me well and I went along with it; I performed but didn’t realise the cost of what seemed like preferment and advantage; nor did I notice the scorn of those who did not clap. 

Like the horse was mad so was I; a bull in a china shop I rushed through life, 
not knowing how to how to stop it, or realise I could do it any other way. 

Unable to reflect on my experience I could not hear those trying to show me this stuff about timing feeling and understanding? 

Yet with our feelings as a resource we move into a sane world in which we know our own mind and become warm tough generous courageous humane and affectionate people like Gary. 

Paradoxically this happens when (and not until) we realise our predicament, that we are stressed, depressed and inadequate, and yet not frightened nor ashamed of it 

When we realise ‘that’s no way to live a life’ we automatically start to find within ourselves new possibilities . . . and we barely notice our developing humanity, of things coming right and making sense. 

F. woman asking what must I do etc .. the encounter with the hurt and madness, going into the heart of darkness 

How hurt a horse must feel for him to rear up and bite his owner. Bringing him back from that madness is no soft or easy option. 

The horse is out of sorts, out of order and can’t help himself; there is a cost to pay and a risk to take in making good that hurt. This is a survival situation and Gary, equipped only with his feelings, craft, skill and intelligence encounters that madness; else he will end up hurt or crippled and the horse will be wasted, shot and literally thrown to the dogs. 

Gary works where it hurts, at the cutting edge of becoming human in a sick and sad culture; by showing us how he gives us permission to risk it and join in as we can. 

G. saddling facing new situation we do well to be tentative .. understanding a new way of seeing things 

Coming into a new situation we, like the horse, do well to be on full alert. We cannot know how we’ll be affected or how we’ll behave in that place or relationship until we are an integral part of it. 

A horse that’s never had a saddle on his back or a bit in his mouth has no ideas in his head of getting his own back, of what ought to or might happen; so he handles the new experience as it comes. 

But our heads are full of ideas from a crazy world promising too much for too little only to put the price up when the newcomer is committed; or it can entheusiastically buy a new horse and then, without compunction, write him off as mad. 

Yet trapped fearful and dependent in a new situation, with a lot to lose, we are apt to say the right thing, what we imagine will make a good impression on whoever must be obeyed, placated or pleased, and so sell ourselves short. 

When we wake up to the reality of our experience, that we are being used bullied and messed about, we are fools if we pretend that all is well. Unlike a hurt horse who can’t move we can bide our time till we can, or cut our losses and run. 

Yet  with nothing to lose, knowing ourselves adaptable and resourceful we can go with confidence into a new situation, and probably survive. As Roger Denton said of Gary it’s amazing…new ways of doing what men have done for thousands of years – and nothing to it..no technology, no religion, no reading or writing. 

H. finale timing feeling and understanding  bloody mindedness, and ignorance. picture it; waste not and want not. 

Owners without Gary’s sense of himself, in their ignorance and fearfulness abuse their horses, beat them, tie them up, tie them to poles, tie their legs together and condemn them to rot in hell. 

Gary brings his timing feeling and understanding to a hurt horse. Lacking his 
confidence we are driven by time management techniques with deadlines and 
schedules as though we can predict and control what will happen in human affairs. 

Yet having seen Gary at work we can picture how it can be at home school and at work when we bring our intelligence, our timing feeling and understanding to whatever difficulties we stumble into.