There may be many ways to train, but there’s only one philosophy that guides true horsemen: The best interests of the horse always come first.

For the past several years, I’ve done a sort of “horse blog” on my Tamarack Hill Farm page on Facebook, and every once in a while, one of the posts seems to especially resonate with a wide audience.

Last week I posted two photos of a 4-year-old Thoroughbred gelding, “Derwin” by Dehere. The first showed him free jumping last April in Southern Pines, N.C., and the other was a standing photo, taken recently, of Derwin being ridden by Katie Dorminey.

The text of the post read as follows: “We free jumped Derwin one time, last April, at the beginning of his 4-year-old year, to see if he had any natural instincts. Once we knew that he did, not a single jump more all summer, just walking on the Vermont hills.

“Now it’s September, and he’s got nice muscling, and he seems to be getting to know where his feet are, up and down hill, in natural terrain, as he gets nearer 5 years old.

“The only reason to rush harder, faster work is human neediness. Sure, don’t let the 4-year-olds turn into blobs, but work them by walking them, and some straightforward trotting while their bodies, tendons and joints adjust to increasing workloads.

“What little you may lose in the young years you will more than make up for in later years. Greedy humans wreck young horses. As simple as that.”

In four days the post had 1,026 likes, 281 shares, 89 comments and 65,344 people reached.

What happens to a young horse is largely dependent upon the human who gets to control his destiny, the person responsible for his long term “care, custody and control.”

There are four groups of humans who get to control what happens to young horses.

In the first group are those who grew up being taught that the definition of a good horseman or good horsewoman is someone who, in an educated rather than sentimental way, always puts the best interests of the horse first, and who acts upon that principle.

The second group is comprised of those who are educated about horses but who are willing to let their need for money or glory or other types of self gratification supersede what might be best for the horse.

In the third group are animal lovers and horse lovers who are ignorant about what is and isn’t good horsemanship. If they do things to get horses in trouble, it’s because they don’t know better, not because they don’t care. They will be open to learning better ways if that education comes along.

The fourth group is made up of people who don’t know about horses, don’t have sympathy or empathy for them, and don’t want or care to learn.

So what do the good horse people in Group 1 know that gives their horses the best chance for a good life? For one thing, they tend to understand sports physiology. Here’s an example. You, the “you” who are reading this Between Rounds article at this very moment, ask yourself the following question: “How far and how fast could I run, right this minute, before I begin to pant for air, before my heart begins to race and pound, and before I start to hurt?”

Unless we have been in consistent athletic training, I’d guess that the answer most of us would give is “not very fast, not very far, and not for very long.”

So if that’s how we would feel if we personally had to suddenly undergo rigorous athletic exertion, before we’d had months of preparatory conditioning, why would we expect the unfit, unprepared young horse to feel any differently?

Good horsemen also know the adage, “Before you ask the horse to do short, fast miles, make certain that he’s had many long, slow miles.” Don’t ask him to withstand stresses for which he isn’t ready. First send him to the “gym” and turn him into a hard, fit athlete. Only then ask for more.

And what if, despite the precautions, the young horse begins to show signs of wear and tear? Does the good horseman simply press on? Not on your life. The training and competing come to a screeching halt to give the youngster time to recover totally before resuming the long process of getting him fit once again.

Jack Le Goff was my former U.S. Equestrian Team coach. He told us that if we were riding three different horses that we should be able to feel, while blindfolded, which legs belonged to which horse, and should be able to tell if there was any heat, swelling or pain that should be cause for concern.

Jack further explained that too little exercise is bad for the young horse, because only stress causes strengthening, but that too much speed and stress, too soon, can lead to bowed tendons, strained suspensories, knee chips, ankle chips, osselets and other precursors of degenerative joint disease. “You can’t unbow a tendon,” was one of Jack’s sayings.

Why some horses get hurt while others survive similar situations also has to do with genetics and conformation. A horse like Secretariat, with his enormous physical gifts, could handle much more stress and hard work, for example, than a horse with crooked legs, or straight hocks, or long, straight pasterns. It’s a bit of the, “Don’t force a square peg into a round hole” analogy. Good horsemen tailor their programs according to the strengths and weaknesses of the individual horses.

Jack also explained that it isn’t just the body of the young horse that is vulnerable to damage. While there are plenty of patient trainers who teach young horses an understanding of the aids through months of soft, consistent repetition, there are others, Jack said, who basically don’t get it. These would be trainers who will say things like, “My horse won’t do what I want. Therefore, he is being bad. Therefore, I have permission to punish him.”

Such an adversarial mindset can lead to all kinds of emotional and physical abuse and escalating reliance on force, the use of strong bits, leverage devices and other methods that the good horseman would avoid.

We often see that horses who have been forced to endure this are either frantic with worry, or have been so beaten into submission that they have that “numb” look, as if they are saying, “I’ll do anything you want, any way you want it.” They’ve become like mindless automatons.

The main point is that good horsemen and horsewomen realize that the process of building fit, calm and confident young horses “takes as long as it takes.” They won’t allow a rigid, time-dependent agenda, nor are they willing to compromise the best interests of their horses for more ribbons or more money, although they may be part of a horse industry in which others may do so.

They don’t care if “Everyone’s doing it.” Somewhere, back when they were younger, someone for whom they had great respect, maybe a parent, a barn owner, a riding instructor or a Pony Club leader, instilled this most basic precept: “The best interests of the horse always come first.”

Twenty years ago, in Clayton, Calif., I was trying to explain to a group of Pony Clubbers how key it is that a horse shouldn’t be expected to perform any job until he’d been physically, mentally and emotionally trained to do it.

“Oh, I get it,” piped up one of the kids. “A horse is like a Coke machine!”

“A Coke machine?” I asked.

“Yes, don’t you see? You have to put the money IN, before you get the Coke OUT!”

The “money” is the requisite fitness and training. The “Coke” is the desired performance. The people who really know horses understand this logic.

Denny Emerson rode on the 1974 World Championships gold-medal eventing team. He served as the U.S. Eventing Association president twice and won the USEA Wofford Cup for his lifetime dedication to the sport. At his Tamarack Hill Farm in South Strafford, Vt., and Southern Pines, N.C., he trains horses and riders, and he owns shares in stallions standing at other farms. An original Between Rounds contributor, Emerson began writing his column in 1989.