How did Tom Dorrance approach starting a colt?

Tom Dorrance's approach to starting a colt reflected his core philosophy that the horse needed to understand and accept each step of the process before the next was introduced, and that the quality of the horse's internal experience during the starting process determined the quality of the horse that resulted. Rather than following a fixed sequence of steps on a predetermined timeline, Dorrance worked from the horse's readiness — presenting the idea of each new element and waiting for genuine acceptance before proceeding, because a colt that tolerated the saddle without genuinely accepting it would carry that unresolved tension into everything that followed. His approach prioritized the horse's thought process over the physical outcomes at each stage: a colt that was thinking about the trainer, curious and attentive, was in the right mental state for learning, while a colt that was braced, anxious, or focused on escape was not in a state where productive learning could happen regardless of what physical behaviors were produced. Dorrance was known for working with colts through a combination of groundwork and early riding that developed the horse's responsiveness and understanding in an integrated way rather than completing all groundwork before any riding — he was interested in the whole horse's development rather than in checking off a list of prerequisite behaviors. The specific physical techniques he used mattered far less to Dorrance than the quality of awareness and timing he brought to the interaction — he could achieve with a soft halter and a lead rope what other trainers could not achieve with a full array of training equipment, because the equipment was not the source of the quality in his horsemanship.