Tom worked with me starting the horse’s hind foot first. I will say, it is not easy to get the feel and timing that goes with it. Tom and I rode the same horses, and once a horse learns this it is easier to get them to start from behind. I am sure most of my success was Tom riding my horses. I remember working on it every time we got on the horses. Tom said, starting with the hind foot first is the beginning, and it is “Basic”.
Tom worked on this with most people that he had spent a lot of time with. Tom never said much, but I am not sure just who was most flustered, Tom or the people he was helping.
Tom often said, “If I could just get inside someone else’s hide.” It is the feel and timing that is hard to teach. In the book True Unity, Chapters ‘Feel the Whole Horse’ is about feel and Timing, and the next chapter ‘Responsive and Right On’, Tom talks about starting the horse from behind and what you might feel for. Tom has said it is all in the book, the person just needs to get it out.
In the book about Tom, More Than a Horseman. Bryan Neubert talks about what goes with this that Tom has talked about in these two chapters. There is more of Bryan in Tom’s Greetings DVD.
Pictured: Tom riding Steve Dorrance’s 3-year-old filly “Rita.” This photo was taken in the mid 1980s.