Horseplay best said in a whisper

By Sholto Macpherson

Resellers beware: the next time some guy from Hitachi starts walking towards you while talking softly and holding a bridle behind his back, make for the door. You’ve found the storage company’s “horse whisperer”, Shannon Cummings.

To be exact, Cummings is actually the SMB partner development manager for Australia and New Zealand at Hitachi Data Systems, and is responsible for channel recruitment. And he swears he’s never slipped a bit and tack on a reseller to date.

Career aside, it seems odd that a Sutherland Shire surfer would find himself interested in such a rural hobby as training horses.

Cummings stumbled across the horse whispering technique after his girlfriend (and now fiancée) Kelly received medical advice on countering polycystic kidney disease, a potentially fatal genetic condition that can lead to kidney failure.

Kelly’s doctor recommended building up the muscles around the kidneys to slow the disease and suggested a long list of exercises that would help; or, he said, she could achieve the same effect through horse-riding.

As it happened, Kelly, a country girl from near Windsor, NSW, grew up with horses and had owned two of her own until they died of old age.

The decision to buy a horse came easily.

“I said to her, ‘Let’s go buy a horse’, thinking it was just like buying a car. But it’s completely different,” said Cummings. “Most people just buy on looks, but they might get a horse that’s really hard to control. And do they want a mare or a stallion?”

Picking the right breed is important in suiting the horse to the task and the rider, as is age and gender.

Cummings and his partner went with a Quarter Horse, favoured by farms in NSW and Queensland for its compact, muscular frame and tireless energy which
suit the arduous work of mustering cattle.

In the end the horse was nice to look at, too. “Cutter” has a golden coat and white mane and tail, a colouring known as Palomino.

However, Cutter had some behavioural problems. He would shy away from males, indicating that he had probably suffered abuse by a man in the past.

Cummings took Cutter to a horse trainer called Rob Horne who uses horse-whispering techniques. In the trade they prefer the less romantic term “horse educator”, which conveys the idea of working with a horse, rather than the old-fashioned “horse breaker” who physically punished the animal to break its spirit and establish control.

The term “horse whisperer” has been used since at least the 19th century, when an Irish horse trainer kept secret the techniques which allowed him to calm uncontrollable horses.

The novel and 1998 film The Horse Whisperer, with Robert Redford and Scarlett Johansson, brought the method to the widescreen, but there are a number of gurus in this Zen art of animal behaviour, some of whom are intensely competitive.

Cummings said the best-known whisperer in Australia is an American named Monty Roberts, who grew up as the son of a horse breaker in Salinas, California. Roberts decided that there had to be a better way and developed his own violence-free method which was popularised in his best-selling autobiography, The Man Who Listens to Horses.

A horse whisperer must learn horse-talk, or the “language of Equis”, as Robert poetically describes it. Using this horse-talk, the whisperer uses the psychology of herd behaviour to win the horse’s trust and obedience. “The result is a willing partnership in which the horse’s performance can flourish to its full potential, rather than exist within the boundaries of obedience,”
said Cummings.

When Cummings watched Cutter being led into the circular riding yard, he was unknowingly about to witness a demonstration that would change his life.
Horne raised his hands towards Cutter, looked him in the eyes and made large movements and noises, intending to mimic a predator. Cutter ran away towards the edge of the training ring, which was floored in sand for the horse’s comfort, and began running around the circumference.

After a while Cutter began to respond to the trainer’s unspoken requests and began licking and chewing and dropping his head. Then Horne crossed his hands in front of his body, lowered his head and turned his
back on the horse, which slowly walked up to him from behind.

Cummings said he couldn’t believe it. “I said, you must have already trained this horse!”

The next encounter was at a corporate training day run by Horne called Horses for Courses. Corporate employees each get a go at trying to communicate with their own horse. Cummings said he had the first part down – getting the horse to run away – but couldn’t get it to start licking and chewing, which is a sign of acknowledgement that the trainer is herd leader and must be respected in return for protection and leadership. Frustratingly, everyone else’s horses were already at that stage.

Horne said to him, “You’re rushing the horse. Don’t tell it, ask it to do what you want.”

Cummings tried again. “After a while the horse lowers its head, calms down and said, ‘Okay, you’re the Alpha, I’ll let you chair the meeting’,” said Cummings.
From that point on, Cummings was hooked. He has been learning the Roberts training methods from Horne, who Cummings said is Roberts’ only Australian trainer, every Sunday since January.

He would love to make it a full-time job but his mortgage prevents that right now. And naturally he said Hitachi is a great company to work for. “Few people get to do their hobby for a living,” said Cummings.

Cummings and his fiancée now live near Wollongong, 45 minutes from the beach, in a part of Australia where houses are sometimes sold with a horse. In this case it was Camelot, a Clydesdale draughthorse.

“I wanted to call him Carlton after the Carlton Draught [beer] draughthorse, but Kelly wouldn’t let me.”

Cummings has his own horse now, another Quarter Horse named Willow, and there is also Cruiser, a Thoroughbred, for friends to ride. The move has made it possible to live with horses outside the back door but the commute to work can be a killer. In bad traffic it can take more than two hours to get to North Ryde.

So has Cummings the horse whisperer taught Cummings the channel manager any useful tips?

Definitely, said Cummings. Instead of an aggressive, “pack your bags, let’s go” attitude, he has adopted a more patient and aware management style; in short, he has learnt to listen. “You have two ears and one mouth. You have to listen to the horse.”

Now in meetings Cummings prefers to sit back and listen to resellers, and use body language to show trust and attention.

Cummings said that working with horses gives a very good indication of how you manage yourself as a leader. “If you are too forceful with a horse he will want to run away and not want to learn. You have to slow down and ask the horse to want to learn.”

Cummings said he has even managed to improve on his KPIs through his new hobby.
At the time of this interview he was in the final moments of signing another reseller, whom he had met several times to explain the HDS channel, products and strategy. His old aggressive technique would have turned off the reseller, said Cummings.

Last week the reseller turned to him and said, “I think we’ve got the social business out of the way. Let’s start to do business.”