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by Tommy Garland
Lead changes are when opening and closing the door come into play. It is very important to understand how leg cues work before attempting to work on lead changes.
Body Control
First begin by moving your horse’s shoulder from right to left. You’ll do this by applying pressure with your heel right behind the horse’s girth. Then move your leg back a little further and move your horses hips over. You should be able to achieve this by applying little leg pressure with your heel or spur further back on the horse’s barrel, but not in his flank. If you are not able to control your horse’s body or move his hip over a foot or two, then leads will be difficult.
Teaching Hip Movement
An easy way to teach your horse how to move his hips over is to walk along a fence line. Move your right leg back on his ribcage, and set your hands with little forward movement. Gently apply pressure with your right leg and tap a couple times to move his hip over to the left. As soon as he moves his hip over, release the pressure and repeat several times. It may take four to five days for him to understand hip movement, but you must have this in order to begin teaching lead changes. Try walking him along the fence and doing hip movement exercises at walk, trot and canter. Then graduate him to practicing hip movement while cantering or loping in circles.
Practicing the Counter-canter
A counter-canter is cantering in a circle on the wrong lead. When you teach your horse to work on the counter-canter you will have even more hip control and it will teach him not to drop his shoulder. When you do a figure eight and you are on a counter-canter at first you will be on the wrong lead, but when you cross the center of the figure you will be in the correct lead. When you switch to the correct lead it will feel much more comfortable. If you are loping to the left and you have your right leg on his hip, when you get to the center of the figure eight keep your right leg on him and counter-canter the next circle. This will get you comfortable with how to move and control your horse’s body.
Working on the Lead Change
Start off cantering to the left and go into a figure eight. At the center of the figure eight release your right leg off of your horse’s hip and add pressure with your left leg. This is where you use opening and closing the door. You opened the door on the right and moved your horse into the space you just created. This works vice versa for the opposite direction. If your horse is cross-cantering or picking up the correct lead on the front end but not the back, keep moving him forward and lop circles until he changes onto the correct lead on both the front and back end. Once you’ve figured out how to control your horses body movement and can change his leads try another exercise. Lope a few circles and then stop and stand. Do a figure eight and switch leads. Canter a few mores circles in this direction and then repeat the exercise.
Putting It All Together
Sometimes more speed helps a horse change leads. Once lead changes have been achieved at a faster speed it’s time to reduce his forward movement, slow him down and get more control. Make sure his knows his correct leads and make sure you have hip control. Lateral flexion is also necessary to perform lead changes. You must have all the pieces necessary to perform a lead change because it is an advanced maneuver.
Translating the experience of a 30 year training career into his universal CPR (Confidence, Patience, Respect) Horsemanship methods, Garland offers horse owners unique and innovative training techniques. For more information, visit tommygarland.com
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