In an interview with Horse Channel, Meehl acknowledged the improbability of working her first time out with a well-seasoned group of filmmakers like Julie Goldman, Producer; Andrea Meditch, Co-Executive Producer and Creative Consultant; Alice Henty, Line Producer; Sofia Santana, Associate Producer; and Toby Shimin, Editor. This wasn’t the team she had started with, but as she says in the interview, if something is not working, you have to change it. And this is a tenet of the Buck Brannaman philosophy, she says: Life is all about your choices. You can’t control a lot of things and bad things happen but you can still make good choices.
This is a film not only for horse lovers, because it's as much about people as it is about horses. Buck and his brother, both child roping stars on the rodeo circuit, were severely and regularly beaten by their father until they were removed to foster care. The empathetic sensibility earned through surviving that brutality probably endowed Buck with his gift for working with horses, along with smarts, mentors with smarts, and a no-nonsense hard-working attitude. This is a powerful and a moving story about a man who managed not only to turn the course of his own life around, but has used the wisdom gained in the hard won struggle to turn the course of so many horses and their owners. For all its beauty and good sense, this film is well worth seeing whether or not you are enchanted by horses, as I am.
