The Language of Natural Horsemanship [Paperback]

Gustafson D. V. M. (Author)

Product Details

• Paperback: 240 pages
• Publisher: Ingram Pub Services; Ill edition (August 26, 2012)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 158150215X
• ISBN-13: 978-1581502152

More About the Author

Montana Quarterly Magazine
Book Review, Spring '07

Horses They Rode
By Sid Gustafson
Riverbend Publishing, 288 pages
Reviewed by Justin Easter

Bozeman author and veterinarian Sid Gustafson has the rare ability to take you from your seat and place you directly in his novel.
He accomplishes this in Horses They Rode not with the all-too-common literary tactics we are used to, but through the use of fascinating imagery. While giving the reader familiar points in Montana to use as reference, Gustafson transports his readers into a different countryside than the one we see from our windows.
Gustafson brings his reader into a world where Indians and cowboys live together, and before the novel even progresses, the affect of this relationship, however strained, is evident to the reader. The nomadic qualities of Gustafson's characters echo throughout the novel and resonate in any reader who has felt an itch for exploration.
If you are interested in opening a book that will captivate your imagination while encouraging introspection, you need not look further than Horses They Rode. You may put this novel down wondering about the spirit of the mountains, the relationships you have with people around you, or even the relationship you have with yourself. This is, of course, not surprising when you realize Gustafson is using his own experiences to masterfully shape his characters.
Expect to read one of the finer stories related to quickly dissipating Montana culture, and one of the most impressive novels written by a Montana author this year. Hold on to your emotions, because there will most likely be an instant when Gustafson is able to open your mind in a way that is truly fascinating.

Justin Easter

Outside Bozeman Book Review

Horses they Rode
by Sid Gustafson
Riverbend Publishing

Fall 2006, reviewed by Anna Bjorklund

Author of several short stories, poetry, and a guidebook on canine first aid, Montana native Sid Gustafson is well-known for his practice of natural veterinary medicine. The Bozeman resident is continuing to grow his literary credentials with a second novel, Horses They Rode, released in September.

The story follows the transitory journey of Wendel Ingraham, a racehorse trainer newly divorced and rebuilding his life in his childhood home along the northern Rocky Mountain Front. Against the backdrop of the shifting ranch landscape, the horse trainer attempts to make peace with past loves, wrestles with the disappearance of his five-year-old daughter back in Spokane, and finally unravels the mystery of his own father's disappearance. Along the way, Wendell finds out about a son he never knew, connecting with the boy while training ranch horses and driving cattle.

Steeped in Native American spirituality and stories, Horses They Rode is a compelling tribute to contemporary ranch culture. Like his debut novel, Prisoner's of Flight, Gustafson's latest is thick with metaphor, weaving together both inner and outer journeys. By rail, by horse, and by mountain highway, Gustafson paints a magical landscape as his protagonist recreates his life and connections with others, the land and himself.

'Horses They Rode' full of linguistic gems
BOOK REVIEW
By SCOTT McMILLION Chronicle Staff Writer

Meet Wendel Ingraham. Meet him slouched over in a Spokane train station, ready to flee the life he has botched and the wife who no longer appreciates "his thoroughbred ways." There among the bums and winos, Wendel doesn't look like much, and he knows it. He's a man who admits he is no better or worse than his malodorous companions.
But he's still got some hope. Wendel is going home to Montana, back to being a white man on the Blackfeet Reservation where he grew up. He knows it's his last chance. "Wendel reckoned if he couldn't find happiness in Montana, he wouldn't find it anywhere," Sid Gustafson writes in the opening pages of his new novel, "Horses They Rode.
"Gustafson is a Bozeman writer and veterinarian. "Horses" is his second novel and the first piece of fiction published by Helena's Riverbend Publishing, making the book very much a Montana project.
Descended from a long line of accomplished Montanans, Gustafson uses his intimate knowledge of the state, its people and its horseflesh to create a compelling story of a man who has spent too much of his life battling his own well being, both financial and emotional.
But he's trying. By God, he's trying. And you've got to root for him, from the time he stumbles off a freight train in Browning until the climactic horse race at the end of the novel.
Along the way, Gustafson delights the reader with characteristic linguistic gems. He describes a prairie wind as "bending into trills and caterwauls." Columbia Falls is a town "befuddled by the stink of its aluminum mill."
And here's his description of modern agriculture, seen from the flank of a northern mountain, where Wendel has just been spooked by a grizzly bear: "Farming stared back at them from the plains, precisely rectangled, Mother Earth turned inside-out, scarred deeply and forever," Gustafson writes. "All the distance broken by farming, tillage taking the entire history away from the land, depriving it of any future."
"Horses They Rode" is the story of a flawed man trying to do better, trying to rebuild a life through family and love, through good horses and good friends in familiar country.
Wendel falters some, and learns to never quit trying. And he listens to his friend, a Blackfeet shaman named Bubbles Ground Owl. "Remember reliable things," Bubbles tells him. "Forget the unreliable."
That's good advice in any place.