I have been thinking about what I had learned from Tom about seeing what is going to “Happen Before it Happens.” It can be used in different ways for recognizing something before it happens, and, naturally, there is a “Feel, Timing, & Balance” that enters into this.
I remember I rode a colt out to gather the brood mares to be checked for breeding. In order for the colt I was riding to not get excited and want to go with them, I watched the mares very carefully. They were watching me and eating grass very fast, this is the way it looked to me and about the moment it looked like they were going to take off in a dead run to the barn and before they did (Before it Happened)… I turned my colt and rode off the other direction until the colt I was riding settled and then I rode on in after them to the barn when the colt was quiet. If the colt had not settled I would have ridden around out there until the colt was disconnected from the bunch of horses that ran to the barn, and was with me.
Depending on the terrain a person might do something like that on a trail ride when a horse gets anxious when another rider rides off and leaves you and your horse. Maybe go another direction or in a circle until that horse gets disconnected from the others, or wanting to hurry, a very important thing to do is keep a forward motion. It takes some staying power to get the horse with you and there are a lot of things a person might do. When helping the colt or horse you can ride away from the another horse and then back again and go another direction and back again until the colt, or horse doesn’t care and is with you.
Also remember to,“Observe; Remember and Compare,” Tom talks about all these in phrases in detail in his book True Unity. In the book More Than A Horseman, there are some articles in which horsemen who had spent time with tom talk about how to apply knowing what “Happen Before it Happens”, and many other things they learned from Tom.