The Draw: Teaching Your Horse to Come to You Jul 24, 2026 Leyden Horsemanship Journal Zachary Leyden Most people learn to send a horse away long before they learn to bring it back. They can move the hindquarters, drive the horse around the pen, ask it to yield and go. Then they wonder why the horse f... Groundwork The Leyden Method Read more
Why Veterans and Horses Understand Each Other Jul 23, 2026 Leyden Horsemanship Journal Zachary Leyden A man walks into a round pen for the first time in years. He has led people under fire. He has no idea how to catch the horse standing twenty feet away, and the horse has no idea he was ever anyone. F... Leadership Through Horsemanship Veterans & Resilience Read more
Designing a Training Experiment Jul 22, 2026 Leyden Horsemanship Journal Zachary Leyden You have a training question. Maybe it is “would my horse load better if I stopped rushing,” or “is he bracing on the left because of me or because of him.” Most people answer questions like these wit... Field Notes The Scientific Method in the Saddle Read more
What the Ears Are Telling You Jul 21, 2026 Leyden Horsemanship Journal Zachary Leyden Stand at a horse’s shoulder and watch the ears for a full minute. They swivel, cup, flick back, tip forward, split so one points at you and one points at a dog three fields away. Most riders glance at... Reading the Horse The Leyden Method Read more
Tom Dorrance, Horseman: The Quiet Source of a Movement Jul 20, 2026 Leyden Horsemanship Journal Zachary Leyden The man most often named as the source of modern natural horsemanship never franchised a method, barely published, and spent the better part of a century politely declining to be famous. Ask working h... History of Horsemanship The Natural Horsemanship Movement Read more
Pressure and Release Leadership: A Horseman's Guide for Managers Jul 19, 2026 Leyden Horsemanship Journal Zachary Leyden Watch a good hand ask a green horse to step sideways. Fingertips rest on the hip with less force than a handshake. The horse leans, thinks, and finally shifts its weight an inch in the right direction... Leadership Through Horsemanship Leading People Read more
Why Grooming Matters in Horsemanship: The First Conversation Jul 18, 2026 Leyden Horsemanship Journal Zachary Leyden By the time the saddle comes off the rack, the horse has already formed an opinion about the next hour. It formed that opinion at the currycomb. Ask why grooming matters in horsemanship and most answe... Grooming & Handling The Leyden Method Read more
Chariot Warfare History: Before Cavalry, the Horse Pulled the War Jul 17, 2026 Leyden Horsemanship Journal Zachary Leyden For roughly a thousand years, the deadliest thing on a battlefield rolled on two wheels behind a pair of horses, and nobody sat on the horses at all. Chariot warfare history usually gets told backward... Cavalry & Working Horses History of Horsemanship Read more
When Your Horse Won't Be Caught: Stop the Chase, Rebuild the Draw Jul 16, 2026 Leyden Horsemanship Journal Zachary Leyden The halter is in your hand, and the horse is at the far fence doing arithmetic. You step left, he drifts right. You slow down, he grazes with one ear filed on you, and the moment your intention sharpe... Problem Solving The Leyden Method Read more
Nervous Rider Tips: A Working Plan for Riding Scared Jul 15, 2026 Leyden Horsemanship Journal Zachary Leyden If you are nervous around a thousand-pound animal with opinions of its own, your arithmetic is working fine. Fear around horses is not a malfunction; it is risk assessment doing its job, sometimes wit... Leadership Through Horsemanship The Inner Rider Read more
Vaquero History: Spain's Horsemen in the New World Jul 14, 2026 Leyden Horsemanship Journal Zachary Leyden The word is built from cattle. Vaca, the cow; vaquero, the man who works her from a horse. Everything else about the tradition follows from that plain job description, and vaquero history begins long ... History of Horsemanship The Vaquero & Western Tradition Read more
Mounting a Horse From Both Sides: Why and How We Teach It Jul 13, 2026 Leyden Horsemanship Journal Zachary Leyden Ask why everyone mounts from the left and you will eventually hear about swords. A cavalryman wore his saber on the left hip, so swinging the right leg over kept the blade clear of the horse. The swor... Riding The Leyden Method Read more
