The complete title of this book says it all: “True Unity, Willing Communication Between Horse and Human“.

Tom Dorrance is the most important reference when we deal with modern Natural Horsemanship in North America. He has launched this new wave of a more respectful horsemanship, although he probably never did it on purpose. This horseman was greatly skilled and reputed to be able to start a wild colt within a few hours, not by magic, simply by listening to the horse and speaking to it in a clear, gentle and comprehensive language.

The book contains different texts: some are written or said by Tom Dorrance _ they are the most interesting of course _, and some are written by students. Students are sometimes quite famous people such as Bill Dorrance, Martin Black, Bryan Neubert or Joe Wolters. Yet, I tend to be very critical with this kind of texts as people like to praise and idolize, and usually forget to be objective. Still, we can find some interesting information in these “Students’ feedbacks”.

True Unity is a very important resource as it contains lots of wisdom, all the natural horsemanship philosophy lays in these pages. That is also its main defect: you will not find any practical information, any exercise in the book. As in most books written by genius, it is full of treasures, but you have to dig hard to find them! In the present post, I try to dig up some of these treasures. I can not write about all of them as it would be too long and fastidious though.
There are three words, three concepts on which is based all Tom Dorrance’s approach to horses. The same concepts have been used to divide his texts in the book:

Downunder Horsemanship is the trademark registered by Clinton Anderson to designate his methods to start colts, to train horses on the ground and from the saddle.

His horsemanship is based on the knowledge he acquired in Australia. Later, he visited the United States where he learnt from Ray Hunt some basic principles:

“Make the wrong thing difficult, the right thing easy.
Do as easy as possible, as firm as necessary.

Downunder Horsemanship by Clinton Anderson

On Horsemanship (Περὶ ἱππικῆς, peri hippikēs) has been written by Xenophon around 350 B.C. and is known as the first book ever written on the subject of horses, their selection, care and training. One text is more ancient (written by Kikkuli of the Mitanni Kingdom) but clearly not as complete as this one.
It is quite interesting to observe that most of the major principles on which modern Natural Horsemanship is based were already well known more than two thousand years ago in Greece and around the Mediterranean Sea. Indeed, the philosopher Xenophon clearly deals with the following concepts:

• Desensitizing;
• Gentleness and patience;
• Timing and harmony with horses;
• Diversity in training;
• Making the wrong thing difficult and the right thing easy;
• Getting the soft feel and avoiding riding gimmicks;
• Rewarding the slightest try.