12/18/2025
I was just talking to Grace and Brynn about feel the other day… granted, I touch on it constantly (no pun intended, lol), but this particular lesson was especially feel-centric!
What Geoff discusses here is why I always encourage y’all to go off throughout the week and practice on your own whatever I spent a solid hour steadily yapping about nonstop in your lesson. Get out there, in the quiet, when it’s just you, your horse, God, and y’all’s issue and develop feel as you navigate your way through it. Pattern recognition, proactivity, confident clarity, all come from trial and error.
I have all day every day to learn from the horses here in training, and you better believe we are out there making mistakes with each other, so I embrace them. Trial and ERROR.
If you want to feel better about the “error” side of things, push yourself there on purpose... Find both edges of the envelope and then settle in the center, where it makes the most sense. Or, simply challenge yourself to make the mistake differently! Over shoot a rollback? Try intentionally turning too soon next time and see what happens. I get great reassurance out of thinking, “Welp, this already isn’t working, what’s the worst that can happen, if I try something else, it doesn’t work?” 🤪 Or realize that every response your horse gives you is elucidating; remember what caused something to go wrong, put it in your pocket and pull it out another time, when you actually NEED that same “wrong” answer to help things go “right” in a different situation.
I am more than happy to give you the Cliffnotes and even a thorough literary analysis, but, when it comes down to it, you have to sit there and immerse yourself in the whole text, turning the pages with your own fingertips, to truly sense the story in your soul.
Enjoy the equine experiment! 🥰
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When trainer Geoff Case talks about great riders, he doesn’t start by listing medals or miles. He talks about feel. It’s that elusive, intuitive quality that turns skill into art.
“Feel is everything,” he said. “It’s how you know when to go forward, when to wait, when to soften, and when to do nothing.” But feel isn’t magic. It’s built through time, mistakes, and awareness.
Case believes that some of the best lessons happen when no one’s telling you what to do. “When you don’t have a trainer in your ear, you have to actually listen to your horse,” he said. “You start figuring out what the horse is saying back.”
That process of trial, feedback, and adjustment is how riders develop true sensitivity. “If he leans, try something. If it works, remember it. If it doesn’t, try something else,” Case explained. “That’s how you learn timing.”
He compares it to learning a language. “The horse is talking all the time,” he said. “You just have to learn the language.”
Feel starts on the ground. Case says groundwork is one of the best ways to understand timing and communication before you ever get in the saddle. “Every horse on the ground teaches you about pressure and release,” he said. “You ask, they move, you release. They learn that the release is the reward. That’s horsemanship.”
He encourages riders to notice those same cues under saddle. “When you put your leg on and they move off, take it off,” he said. “Reward the try. That’s what creates softness.”
This rhythm, ask, feel, release, is the foundation of connection. “If you’re just pulling or kicking, you’re not having a conversation,” he added. “You’re just yelling at the horse.”
📎 Continue reading this article at https://www.theplaidhorse.com/2025/12/15/feel-is-a-muscle-how-to-learn-without-a-trainer-in-your-ear/
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