Often there are people who attend my clinics with considerable experience of other trainers and clinicians. At my clinics, they often come across ideas and concepts that are either new or contradict or challenge views they have already been taught. For some, this means I never see them again and for others they choose to become regulars at my clinics.
A fellow came to ride at a clinic. He was good horseman and had plenty of skills to offer. His horse was well educated and going nicely. He was a keen student of horsemanship and has been to many clinics run by highly regarded horse people. Rick seemed to have read every book and watched every video on the subject.
The help that I offered Rick and his horse focused mostly on giving an understanding of softness. Rick’s horse had difficulty working at the faster gaits without adding to its anxiety. The horse was never out of control or anything like that. It just became tighter across its top line and more worried when its thoughts were interrupted.
I see this problem a lot and there is usually more than one root cause behind the problem. However, one issue that Rick suffered from was the concept of a ‘soft feel’. Soft feel is an idea that is talked about a lot by some teachers. Let me be totally clear about this. I am not blaming the concept of ‘soft feel’. But I am blaming the people who teach it. It is so clear by the huge number of people who misunderstand ‘soft feel’ that clinicians are doing a really poor job of teaching it.
I have attended many horsemanship clinics by other people and of those that talk about ‘soft feel’ not one of them ever explained the distinction between a ‘soft feel’ and ‘softness’. In fact, most use the terms interchangeably as if they were identical.
There is a lot of misconception that ‘soft feel’ equates to ‘softness’. It doesn’t – never has and never will. It would be like equating a well-read person as being a wise person.
Soft feel is a trick that falls far short of teaching a horse to carry itself correctly. It involves the physical release of the poll to pressure from the reins. For most people, it involves a horse offering vertical flexion in response to the reins – a bowing down of the head if you like. This coincides with a dropping of the base of the neck with no relaxation through the top line muscles. It’s little more than the horse’s head dropping and a feeling of lightness on the reins. In fact, it is an evasion of rein pressure that travels from the poll to the wither. In my opinion, ‘soft feel’ is nothing more than a lesson in not leaning on the reins.
In contrast, ‘softness’ to the reins affects the whole length of the horse. When a horse softens to the reins, the base of the neck is elevated and the neck telescopes in a vertical flexion. The muscles along the top line relax and the back is lifted allowing room for the hindquarters to engage further. The only thing it has in common with a ‘soft feel’ is that there is vertical flexion of the neck and there is lightness to the reins. The big difference is that a ‘soft feel’ is an evasion of rein pressure, whereas ‘softness’ is a yielding of the whole horse to rein pressure that comes from relaxation, not evasion.
Soft feel is taught by the rider releasing the feel of the rein when a horse arches its neck and stop leaning on the bit. However, ‘softness’ is taught by the rider releasing the feel of the reins when a horse mentally relaxes. This mental change causes the base of the neck to elevate and the topline to soften. The mental softening is the cause of the physical softening, not the result of it.
Now here is the big problem. Rick did not know that ‘soft feel’ and ‘softness’ were different because despite all his extensive education and knowledge in regard to horsemanship, nobody told them. So when he tried to teach his horses to soften at the faster gaits he was getting a ‘soft feel’, but the physical and mental relaxation that he was seeking kept eluding them.
There is nothing wrong with teaching a horse ‘soft feel’. It can be used as a stepping stone towards ‘softness’, self carriage and eventually collection. But it is a problem when we confused ‘soft feel’ with ‘softness’ and leave a horse stuck in a world of only ‘soft feel’. Softness is an emotional response, whereas ‘soft feel’ is simple a physical response.
This is extreme ‘soft feel’ where the base of the neck is jammed downward and the neck is shortened and crunched instead of elevated into a natural flexion. This level of ‘soft feel’ does more damage than good to the horse eventually carrying itself correctly.