The colt stopped, and Henry reached down and petted him on his neck, a reassuring sign to the colt that everything was all right. Henry let the colt stand for several seconds so that the young horse could relax and catch his breath. The colt hadn’t gone far, but he had gone pretty fast, holding his breath most of the way. When he did stop, his nostrils flared and sides heaved as he breathed in the fine dust that hung in the air.

Soon, Henry began making the kissing sound and lightly squeezing again, and again the colt backed. This time, Henry didn’t wait so long before he turned the colt’s head, and as soon as he did, the colt took an unbalanced step forward. The sound and pressure came off, and the colt got to rest. On the third attempt, the colt took only three steps backward before Henry turned him, and this time, the colt took one forward step, and then another. Henry stopped and heaped praise on him the likes the colt had not experienced from either Henry or Jessie. It was then that, even though the colt didn’t really think he could do it, he knew for sure what Henry wanted.

Over the next several minutes, with Henry’s patient help and guidance, the colt slowly began to make tentative progress. For the colt, it was very much like the feeling he had when taking his first steps right after he was born. He was completely out of balance and the feeling of something upright on his back was so foreign it was actually a little frightening. But after two steps, then three and finally six and seven steps, the colt began to find his balance and timing, and soon he and Henry were walking comfortably around the inside of the pen.

In another session with Henry, the colt learned how to stop, turn and back up when he felt pressure from the sheepskin-covered noseband of the side-pull he was wearing. That lesson seemed to be simply an extension of a lesson he learned earlier in his training: when he felt pressure, he should give to it rather than fight it. It was an easy concept for him to understand. After this session with Henry, the colt was back to feeling confidant and comfortable. In another session, the colt learned how to carry Henry when the colt trotted and then cantered. In the same lesson, he also learned how to slow down out of the trot and canter when asked to do so. It was during that particular session with Henry the colt began to realize that Henry was asking him to do things that he already knew how to do. The only difference was, Henry was asking him to do those things at specific times and using specific requests, such as a kissing sound, or pressure on his sides with his legs, or the pressure on the noseband of the side-pull.

Once the colt figured out Henry was only asking things of him that he could already do, the training then became extremely easy for both of them. As time went on, the pressure Henry used to ask the colt to move, or stop or turn became so small, it was as if sometimes he was using no pressure at all. Somehow, the colt and Henry had gotten to a point where they seemed to share the same thought, and it was then that the colt’s learning really took off. It was also around that time Henry and the colt moved from the smaller round pen into the big arena for their sessions.