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Home └Course 100 — Equine Science & Care
Course 100 — Equine Science & Care

Course 100 — Equine Science & Care

The first course of the Level 1 Foundational Horsemanship Certification, and the place every rider at Ocean View Stables begins. Course 100 opens with the Leyden Way itself: Feel, Timing, and Balance, how horses actually learn, and the two standards that govern your progress, the Zero Assistance Standard and the Rule of Three. From there it moves to the horse: anatomy, colors and markings, feed and water, hooves, vital signs, and the daily routine.

Then the hands-on core: grooming as a daily physical exam, the parts of the western saddle, the California knot, saddle fit, and the after-care that finishes every ride. Pass the certification at the end to show your ground knowledge is solid, then carry it into Course 101.

Soft is strong. Clarity is kindness.

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Responsible Zachary Leyden
Last Update 07/28/2026
Completion Time 8 hours 58 minutes
Members 7
Basic
  • The Foundation (empty)
    7Lessons · 1 hr 4 min
    Section 1 of 6. Before you touch a horse you need the method that everything else hangs on. This section gives you the map of Level 1, the three ideas behind the Leyden Way, a working definition of feel, timing, and balance, and the learning mechanism every later exercise depends on. Read it slowly. Everything after this assumes it.
    • Welcome to the Rider's Journey
      The map before the territory. What Level 1 actually certifies, the sixteen stages an instructor signs, and how long it takes at the pace you really ride.
      Preview New
    • Soft Is Strong: The Leyden Way
      Back to nature, the scientific method, and first principles. Where the Leyden Way came from, and why softness is a form of strength rather than the absence of it.
      Preview New
    • Feel, Timing, and Balance
      Three words every horseman uses and almost nobody defines. Defined here, including the half second that separates a release from a reward.
      New
    • How Horses Learn: Pressure and Release
      Horses do not learn from pressure. They learn from its removal. This is the single mechanism underneath every exercise in all four courses.
      New
    • The Two Standards: Zero Assistance and the Rule of Three
      The Zero Assistance Standard and the Rule of Three. The two published rules that decide when a skill is yours and when you are still borrowing your instructor's eyes.
      New
    • Watch: Tom Dorrance — Exposure to New Ideas
      Vintage footage of Tom Dorrance, the source this whole method flows from, guiding Bryan Neubert through two colts. Watch his hands, not the horses.
      New
    • Watch: Tom Dorrance — Feel, Timing and Balance
      You just read about the three pillars. Now hear Tom Dorrance himself, the man who named them, explain what feel, timing, and balance actually mean. Everything else in these four courses builds on this six minutes.
      New
  • Knowing the Horse (empty)
    9Lessons · 1 hr 33 min
    Section 2 of 6. A horse you cannot describe is a horse you cannot report on. Here you learn the language: the points of the body, the colors and markings that tell one animal from another, and the three numbers, age, height, and condition, that decide what a horse can fairly be asked to do.
  • Daily Care and Feeding (empty)
    5Lessons · 1 hr
    Section 3 of 6. The gut, the hoof, and the vital signs are where horses actually get hurt, and they get hurt quietly. This section teaches you the normal so well that the abnormal announces itself, and it draws the hard line between what a student reports and what a student never treats.
    • Feed, Forage, and Water
      Eight litres of stomach, a hundred litres of hindgut, and acid that never stops. The anatomy behind every feeding rule here, including the ones that look fussy.
      New
    • The Hoof: Picking, Cycles, and What to Watch
      A quarter inch a month, a whole new hoof in a year. How to pick out four feet properly, and the four findings that mean the horse is not ridden today.
      New
    • Vital Signs and When to Call
      Temperature, pulse, respiration. Learn the normal ranges cold, because their whole value is that the abnormal jumps out at you at six in the morning when you are half awake.
      New
    • Turnout, Stall, and the Daily Routine
      Why every horse here is deliberately looked at three times a day, how a horse is released into a field without anyone getting kicked, and why routine is a welfare measure and not just tidiness.
      New
    • Watch: How the Horse's Gut Works
      University of Georgia equine science on why the horse is built for constant forage. The reasoning behind our feed rules, from the people who measured it.
      New
  • Grooming (empty)
    4Lessons · 1 hr 2 min
    Section 4 of 6. Grooming is not cleaning. It is the daily physical exam you run with your hands on an animal that cannot tell you where it hurts. Learn the order, learn the tools, and learn what your palm is really looking for.
    • The Grooming Kit and What Each Tool Does
      Feet, curry, hard brush, soft brush, mane and tail. What each tool is for, where it must never go, and why the metal curry never touches the horse.
      New
    • Grooming as Diagnosis
      Twenty minutes a day with your hands on every inch of an animal that cannot speak. Heat, swelling, flinching, and the head nod that tells you which foot hurts.
      New
    • Grooming With Intention
      A slower look at grooming as a conversation rather than a chore, with a short quiz to close it out.
      10 xp
    • Watch: How to Groom a Horse, Step by Step
      A full grooming routine start to finish. Watch how she keeps one hand on the horse the whole time and reads it while she works.
      New
  • Saddling (empty)
    5Lessons · 1 hr 40 min
    Section 5 of 6. More horses are spoiled by a saddle that does not fit than by any rider's hands. The tree, the pad, the placement, the cinch, and the California knot, tied the same way every time, because the one time it is tied badly is the time the saddle turns.
    • Parts of the Western Saddle and the Pad
      The tree, the bars, the pad, the rigging. Learn what actually carries the rider's weight, then learn the ten second test that condemns a saddle for good.
      New
    • The California Knot
      The knot that holds your saddle on. Tied flat, tail pointing down, fifty times on a rail and fifty more with your eyes shut. Tail up is how saddles turn.
      New
    • Does the Saddle Fit?
      Two to three fingers at the wither, a flat hand down the bars, and a sweat pattern that tells the truth. Fit is checked on the bare back and never fixed with a thicker pad.
      New
    • Saddling and Unsaddling With Intention
      The full saddling sequence with the reason behind each step, plus a quiz to check you have the order right.
      10 xp
    • Watch: The Basics of Saddling
      Pat Puckett, from the vaquero tradition, on placement, cinching order, and fit. Compare every step against what you just read.
      New
  • After-Care (empty)
    4Lessons · 37 min
    Section 6 of 6. The ride is not over when you dismount. Cooling out, tack care, and closing the barn are graded skills here, signed off like any other, because how a person finishes tells you more about their horsemanship than how they start.
  • The Certification (empty)
    1Lessons · 30 min
    Everything Course 100 taught you, tested. Ten questions, eighty percent to pass, unlimited attempts, and no trick items. Pass this and your ground knowledge is solid enough to be useful in the barn tomorrow.
    • Course 100 Certification
      Ten questions, eighty percent to pass, unlimited attempts. Everything Course 100 taught you, tested the way the barn will test you.
      New
  • Go Deeper (empty)
    8Lessons · 1 hr 30 min
    The encore. Your certification is behind you. This is where the Leyden Way points past itself: the library it was built from, and the archive footage of the men who built it, starting with Tom Dorrance in Depression era Oregon.
    • The Library of the Leyden Way
      True Unity, Think Harmony With Horses, The Faraway Horses, and the films worth an evening. Where to go next, in the order that will make the most sense.
      New
    • Watch: The Original — Tom Dorrance
      Where it all starts: a short documentary on Tom Dorrance, from Depression-era Oregon to the man every teacher in this program traces back to. Watch this first; the next four videos follow the line forward.
      New
    • Watch: Bill Dorrance at Ninety — Lessons from a Legend
      Tom's older brother Bill, still teaching in his nineties. Bill's book True Horsemanship Through Feel sits on the shelf you read about in the Library lesson. This is the only public footage of him at work; watch his hands.
      New
    • Watch: Buck on Ray — What He Meant
      The Dorrances taught Ray Hunt; Ray taught Buck Brannaman. Here Buck tells you what Ray meant to him, over archival footage of Ray. Three minutes that explain why this lineage matters.
      New
    • Watch: A Tribute to Ray Hunt
      From the memorial gathering in Fort Worth, 2010. The horse world saying goodbye to the man who carried Tom's message to the public. You will meet Ray at work throughout Courses 102 and 103.
      New
    • Watch: A Legacy of Legends
      The foundation Buck Brannaman and the Hunt family built to keep Tom's and Ray's teaching alive, which is exactly what this program is for. From here, go start Course 101.
      New
    • Watch: Buck — The Film That Told the World
      The official trailer for Buck, the Sundance-winning 2011 documentary from the Library lesson's watch list. Two minutes that show why this lineage reached far beyond the horse world.
      New
    • Watch: Monty Roberts — A Real Horse Whisperer
      A parallel road: while the Dorrances taught from the ranch, Monty Roberts reached the same conclusion, that force fails, from the racetrack world. His full life story. Watch it as a comparison: same destination, different trail.
      New