What is the book True Horsemanship Through Feel and why does it matter?

True Horsemanship Through Feel, compiled by Leslie Desmond from her work with Bill Dorrance and published in 1999, represents one of the most systematic attempts to document the feel-based horsemanship philosophy of the Dorrance tradition in a form that can guide a student's development across the full arc of a horse's training. Unlike True Unity, which captures Tom Dorrance's ideas in a more episodic and philosophical form, True Horsemanship Through Feel attempts a more sequential approach — working through the development of feel from its earliest groundwork applications through the progression of equipment and refinement that leads toward the finished bridle horse. The book matters because it provides the most detailed written account of how feel applies at each stage of a horse's development, from the earliest handling through the nuances of working in a snaffle, through the hackamore, and toward the two-rein and full bridle horse that represents the vaquero tradition's highest expression of horsemanship. Bill Dorrance was unusually articulate about the mechanics of feel — how it worked in the specific physical interactions of the hand with the reins, the seat with the horse's back, the leg with the horse's side — in ways that made his ideas more directly applicable than Tom's more philosophical approach, and Desmond's compilation captured this articulateness in a form that practitioners can study and apply. The book is considered essential reading in the vaquero-influenced natural horsemanship tradition alongside True Unity, and together the two books document the Dorrance brothers' contribution to horsemanship philosophy more completely than any other sources available.