The gift of many

I was riding a horse today who pretty well demands you get your position right before he will canter right.  Well, left, but correctly.

And I was thinking about Buck talking about how horses fill in for us.  I think it is Buck, might be Ray, or Tom even in that mystical tome of his.  But horses fill in for us all the time, and most people never even realize it, the horse is going, ok, yeah, fine, that isn't really helping me do that but I get that is what you want and fine, I'll do it.  We don't quite have our bodies balanced but the horse stays straight anyway.  All sorts of things.

And this is one of the gifts of getting to ride a lot of different horses:  Each horse will have something that they won't fill in so much on.  And you have to get that right or they won't get it.  And that helps you get that right.  With every horse.

less sooner

A whole lot of people not that into horsemanship but into horses don't understand that feeding them, leading them in and out of the fields, that's where horsemanship lies.  Or doesn't.  Riding, that's a thing, sure.  A really really big thing.  But if you are riding a horse you can't actually lead, well, you are riding some pretty big holes.

If you can't lead a horse through grass and not have that horse dive to pick grass, your timing is bad.  If the horse makes it to grass, he has his reward, and you are likely pulling, jerking, yelling, hitting --or saying, well, ok, have a bite or two, that's fine.

That's what "do less sooner" means.  You have to be paying enough attention to know that horse is about to go for grass before much, if anything, visible happens.  Then your response can be a very very very light "pay attention" change.

If the horse pulls before you even know it is happening, you are going to have a pulling horse, and never ever ever lightness.