The New Edition of A Horse’s Thought A Journey into Honest Horsemanship is Now available!
Tom's latest book is an extremely rare written glimpse into implementing the teachings of renowned clinician, Harry Whitney. Tom Moates’s popular writings exploring his personal exploits with Niji, Sokeri, and other horses, as he sincerely attempts to improve his horsemanship skills with Whitney’s patient guidance, are regular features in Eclectic-Horseman and America’s Horse magazines. This book combines an abundance of new, previously unpublished material regarding this ongoing odyssey, with recently expanded and updated essays from the magazine series. Inquisitive as always, Moates applies his familiar candid and plainspoken style to probe the depths of very difficult aspects of horsemanship. The results are sometimes wrecks, occasionally triumphs, but always enlightening...and a lot safer experienced on the page!
Excerpt from the book:
“Hanging between two reins is a thought,” Harry said. If we can visualize that, then what follows naturally is the understanding that those reins, never ever turn the head or the horse. Rather, they simply steer the horse’s thought. Once established, one can ever so gently ask the horse to think around to the right with just a finger on the rein, then watch his head turn as he thinks around that way. No bracing in the neck. No head popping up in opposition to the rein. No. You’re not manipulating the flesh in any physical way. There is never a need for a more severe bit. Why? Because all the rein does is present a slight suggestion. If that horse is with you, his brain understands the lightest request and he is ready to commit to the suggestion whole heartedly and bring his own body along too. If you don’t have this, then your horse isn’t feeling okay inside with the situation, and it’s time to ask some new questions and try to understand some new answers.
Discovering Natural Horsemanship chronicles one man’s obsession to get better with horses in a gentle way. Author Tom Moates’s life and work were on a horseless path until serendipity brought Niji, a sorrel gelding, into his life. Nothing has been the same since.
In his candid and plain-speaking style, Moates shares the honest highs and lows that come with the territory of starting out in the Better Way with horses. Along the road, many well known clinicians—including Harry Whitney, Bryan Neubert, Linda Parelli, John Lyons, and Ray Hunt—generously tolerate his thirst for helpful information on getting better with horses, and Moates works hard to share their wise words in this book, alongside his personal experiences attempting to implement them.
Sometimes humorous, often inspiring, and always resonating with authenticity, Discovering Natural Horsemanship is an awesome read for anyone who loves a great true story, whether horses have knocked you from the regular orbit of your life, or not . . . yet.
Excerpt from the book:
“The sun on their fuzzy winter coats warmed them that morning to complete tranquility. All three stood, each with a rear leg cocked, in a sun coma when I got up there around eleven. Saddling up Soke went with ease, and I rode her down the farm road and over to the house just fine. Soke and I had been going for rides away from the other two for several weeks now in preparation. Even the still-nursing colt was fine when the mare was absent for an hour at a time, perhaps a testament to Niji’s babysitting skills. Just as the house came into sight, we saw Terrie’s green F-250 pick-up and gray two-horse trailer driving down another farm road toward the house from the other side. Sokeri changed. I felt the change. The sensation was not just in her body—which did stiffen, her head raised with ears focusing on the trailer—but was also in the energy field around her, which included me. She became electric, like the air just before a storm.”