‘Horse Whisperer’ inspiration remains a humble cowboy

Buck Brannaman is a simple, soft-spoken man under a dirty rancher’s hat, an American cowboy who infuses his teachings with a hint of humor, tough love and common sense. Lounging under a cabana by the pool of the Hotel Solamar in the Gaslamp Quarter, brown boots up on a wicker stool, he looked a little out of place. Lately, Brannaman has been doing interviews for the release of the Sundance Audience Award-winning documentary “Buck.” “She must have just caught me at the right time,” Brannaman said, recalling the day first-time director Cindy Meehl, who had been to a few of his horse clinics, asked him if he wanted to be the focus of a film. “It was funny that I said yes, because over the years, there have been quite a few people that have asked me and I’d say, ‘No, do it on something else.’ ” For 29 years, Brannaman has been helping people with horse problems. Or, as he likes to put it, “horses with people problems.” He believes that his career path began when he was taken away from his abusive father at 12. At the home of his foster parents, Forrest and Betty Shirley, horses were a refuge: “They seemed to have a way of giving me just what I needed at the time, in terms of the healing and the comfort that I was looking for.”...more