“I purchased him sight unseen from pictures—I had fallen in love with his pictures,” Leanne said. “He had been home for four or five weeks, and he just really started to come on. I told my fiancée, Kent, that I might think about sending him to the World Show.”

Softness, he explains, is having the sensitivity we need in order to understand when and if the horse tries to “give.” It is about developing the kind of awareness it takes to know when we are working against our horses, rather than with them. And it is intrinsically linked to the feel and connection we seek on the ground and in the saddle.