The Horse Whisperer

In 1976, a native New Yorker made his way to Colorado. He loved horses, and had spent the better part of his young life with the majestic animals. Now, 35 years later, Tony Brunetti is the cowboy he always wanted to be.

All in La Famiglia

Tony (whose childhood home in Brooklyn is pictured on the facing page, top left) and his wife, Denise, have three children—Anthony, John, and Christina—six grandchildren, a dog, and a string of horses that Tony collects, trades away, and replaces with cyclical regularity. The difference between his children and his horses is probably best distinguished by his family’s permanent and important position in his life: They still eat together each Sunday, meeting at Tony’s Western-decorated house in Broomfield. “When you really think about it, training horses is not much different than raising children,” he says. “You gotta be clear; it’s gotta be black and white. When they do wrong, you let ’em know it’s wrong. When they do right, you let ’em know it’s right. So it’s really not a big thing. Children just don’t walk on four feet.”