The Feel of Release: RIDING CALLE
With the California fires still smoldering, we camped out for a week in the desert for a full immersion trainers' retreat, in the foot-hills of Southern California. It was my first trainers' clinic with Leslie Desmond in 2007, and led to many others. Leslie covered so much, each day a 10 hour day, followed by various topics around the camp fire in the evenings. And I craved more still - finally I had found what I had been seeking, for what felt like an eternity.
Leslie surely "threw me in the deep end" on day one - at a gallop on her own beloved "Calle". It was a rare opportunity to be sure, and one for which I will forever be grateful. It was pivotal and changed how I handle horses and ride, just about overnight. I include this collection of articles, unedited from that time, and loaded with the fresh expression of the deep shifts that I made in my horsemanship.
1. Exhilarating riding & connection with the horse

The true exhilaration for me was never in the risk though. It was in the connection with the horse. A vital connection, and one that carried us through these adventures unscathed for years. How inspiring it was then to discover through Leslie that this was only the tip of the iceberg…
2. Calle’s maneuverability at the gallop
Calle was showing me the feel of Leslie’s foundation: the feel of release...
3. For lightness in a ride, ride with lightness

There is a weight to that plan to use pressure somehow, which left me. And when the feel of release is in your veins, every horse you encounter seems to know it...
4. Adjusting to Calle and the reciprocal feel of release

It is astonishing that the feel in such common-place presentations to the horse, is often really quite contrary to what we actually mean the horse to do!
5. Calle’s clinic finale – exquisite ‘feel and release’… the proof is in the pudding
The feel was of a horse wholly available in every cell, tuned into my intent, for any maneuver I had in mind, with optimal athleticism and the most accurate and sure footwork imaginable...
6. The source of genuine lightness is already in the horse and available

With shoulders elevated, hips coiled and life released with accuracy and poise, each horse is exactly and directly where needed, in order to follow the feel uniquely experienced in that particular moment. Calle’s feel under saddle retained these characteristics...
More Articles...
- 7. Riding Luigi – before and after Leslie’s foundation
- 8. A foundation that preserves, accesses and shapes the feel of a horse
- 9. Getting with a horse through feel: releasing the partner in him to you
- 10. The “Softness Onion” – an ongoing discovery of the horse
- 11. She is quite something, that Calle