this prospect of stuffing him into a trailer. We can make him get in. We can ask him to get in. We can show him how we think he ought to get in. Then in the end he'll have to get in whatever way he can…or not. Some of them have the last word. They don't get in. I had years of struggle at the back of a trailer before I understood that the first thing I had to teach him was to unload."

Leslie's training tips are interspersed with the sounds of horses - galloping by (as Leslie galloped next to Bill's old truck - what a story she tells!), trotting on pavement, clip-clopping down an aisleway - and bits of music. Each CD comes in its own case with a great cover photo and includes a small illustrated pamphlets with quotes about horses and such.

From groundwork to livening up, overexposure to riding with others, Leslie gives practical and philosophical advice. Some of it is controversial and provocative. For example, she's against handfeeding: "From the horse's point of view, if a person shows up consistently offering something to them by hand and usually before the first treat is fully chewed up and swallowed there is a second one available, it's not a surprise that the horse learns to come forward and is rewarded for coming forward into the space of the person who is feeding him. It generates a bit of confusion for a horse to be asked to step into someone's space ... and then to be pushed back."

Her views on the value of pressure and release are revolutionary, in today's world where the emphasis seems always on the pressure, and so much less on the release: "When you're on him, the release I'm talking about has to do with not kicking and not pulling…release him to go…open your leg…just have him understand you'll wait for him to go. The flip side of the pressure is the release. It just depends how much emphasis you want to put on which part of that… It took quite a while for me to understand what Bill (Dorrance) actually meant by the word release. It's just an evolution in your understanding of feel."

Whatever the topic, Leslie urges us to look at things from the horses' point of view and to adjust our approach as necessary: "When something we do either frightens him or confuses him to the point that he has to act out his need to survive, it's really important for us to take a breath and offer him a bit of space so that he can sort things out."

This Audio Book is ultimately not a "how to" but a "why to" … Its trails lead to the heart of why we are with our horses, and that heart is about having a relationship and a partnership with our horses. As Leslie says, "I don't increase pain where there are better alternatives in order to achieve submission. That's because it's not submission I'm looking for."

All Things Cowboy

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