HELENA -- The 5-year-old Arabian stallion had been locked in a dark stall for months. His owners controlled him with chains and left his halter on so long, it had grown into his skin.

When his owners wanted to take him somewhere, they caught him with long poles and chased him into the back of a semi-truck.

They treated him like this, Buck Brannaman said, to achieve that certain wild, tense look that wins ribbons at halter shows.

The stallion turned violent and would sooner have killed a man than dealt with him.

''When the horses go through this sort of trauma, they're similar to where a kid can end up," said Brannaman, who is the basis of the main character in Nicholas Evans' best-selling novel, ''The Horse Whisperer. "

His lecture closed a three-day conference in Helena on child abuse prevention. The audience of hundreds, included social workers, foster parents, child advocates and others.

''It's a hell of a thing," Brannaman said of the abused. ''You look in their eyes and they're dead."

The horse whisperer Brannaman, a young Montana cowboy leading his first horse clinic in Arizona in the early 1980s, was challenged to load that stallion into a horse trailer.

No one could even touch the horse, nonetheless load him, but Brannaman took the bait. Later that day, that stallion was not only going in and out of the horse trailer like he owned it, Brannaman said, he was following him around like a puppy.

Abused horses are like abused children, Brannaman said. They trust no one and expect the worst. But patience, leadership, compassion and firmness can help them overcome their pasts, he said.

And he should know. Brannaman, who served as the main consultant to Robert Redford in the making of the film ''The Horse Whisperer," was an abused boy himself.

Brannaman and his brother seemed to have a storybook life, growing up in Coeur d'Alene as rodeo stars and television performers. But Brannaman said they never knew a day without fear.

''From the outside looking in, it looked really glamorous," Brannaman said. ''But my dad gave us the choice of practicing roping tricks or getting whipped."

The boys lived in the shadow of their abusive father until one day, their housekeeper convinced them to leave with her on a promise that she would raise them as her own.

A few days later, she left them on the courthouse steps in Virginia City. The boys knew they couldn't go back to their dad -- ''we wouldn't last the night," Brannaman said -- but found grace when a foster family in Ennis took them in.

That was when Brannaman realized what it was like to live without fear.

''I remember the feeling of contentment because I knew I had an entire night when I had nothing to fear," Brannaman said.

Over time, Brannaman grew more confident and came to have a purpose in life. He is now a successful horse trainer who gives clinics all over the country.

And he says the lessons he learned as a youngster are the lessons he practices everyday with horses.

He gained the trust of that violent Arabian stallion by rewarding the horse with rope slack every time he took a tentative step toward him. While the horse didn't understand at first -- he had never been cut any slack before -- he eventually covered the 40 feet that separated him and Brannaman and let the gentle cowboy take off his scabby halter.

And the lessons he practices on horses are the same lessons that can help heal children's troubled pasts, he said.

''Some of the rules apply the same," Brannaman said. ''If you're feeling so damned sorry for them that you can't give them a job to do, you're going to fail. There's nothing wrong with a kid working. It makes them appreciate play."

Brannaman got a standing ovation, and attendees said his advice rings true.

''It was so moving, so riveting," said Cecilia Cravens, a Child Protective Services worker who traveled from Shelby to attend the conference. ''The comparisons with the kids were right on."

Mertie Gardner of Rexford, who opened her house to foster children for the first time five years ago, called Brannaman's lecture ''amazing" and took his message to heart.

''It's so easy to feel sorry for the children," she said.