BASICS: Developing feel is what you start with, and it comes in there even before some of these other basics. And getting that better feel — that’d be feel that was real effective — applied to the horse comes in anytime after the person has first learned to feel of the horse. Even when the horse and the person get together through feel, there’s always a place for the basics. There’s really not a time when a horse is better without them. The timing and feel a person presents to the horse on the ground is always connected to these basics. Way down at the bottom is what the foundation comes from, and that’s just basics. Without those, many surprising things can happen.
How a person goes about laying that foundation has a lot of variables to it, because no two people or horses are alike. It’s important to have a real good instructor to help that person learn how to feel of the horse, but one might not always be around.
One thing I’ve heard, and I think it’s all right to say it, is that the last thing some people learn about where horses are concerned is the first thing you need to get understood and applied. And that’d be when a fella’s referring to the basics, there isn’t any question about that.
We want to get the basics introduced early because so many people like to go fast. They want to start those horses too far up the line — way above what those horses or even the people themselves can understand without a foundation. I’d rather a person who was going to ride a horse, or lead one even, had some fitting ideas about feel that a horse could understand to go along with their plan of doing those things. It would sure make a big difference to the horse if they did. It doesn’t matter how far up the line you want to go with your horse, there will be problems cropping up if those basics have been left out. And if they had to get left out for too long, well, could be some people might think they would like to spend their time another way. But, we’re in hopes that they’ll get it sorted out in plenty of time to keep themselves and their horses out of trouble.