This is a little bit of the study of Leslie Desmond's Audio Book: By Jeanne, who is leading this particular discussion:
This chapter has so much goodness in it I don't know where to begin but I have devoured every word of it and am applying it to everything I do with my 3 horses. They all came to me as different as night and day but I do have the luxury of knowing their history. An overbred oversized registered clyde. An abused and mistreated rearaholic arab-quarter horse cross. A coming 3 yr old quarter horse I got as weanling. It might seem obvious to some trainers that a different degree of firmness would be required for the development of each of these horses. Not so! At this time I would like to direct you to the sixth and seventh sentences Leslie reads to us from her Audio Book. "As much as possible I try to locate and work within a spot that is between the horse's certainty and his uncertainty. That's a distinctly different spot in each horse and it is what makes each horse an individual." Using this particle of feel I can find that place where the horse is just "this close" to revealing his uncertainties to me. I really don't see the need to dig around, open up the whole can of worms and expose the whole enchilada. Fixing it up in a number of grand sessions where the horse is gonna show me all his braced up areas is not for me so this conservative approach to firmness works real well for me. Allow me to close with sentence 29. "In the end force rarely achieves something that will hold or be sustained through understanding." Jeanne ______________________________ Judy http://icehorses.net http://clickryder.com
