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 Poor Cracker Girl
Posts: 12150
   
Location: Feeding mosquitos, FL | OK Folks smarter than me. Frustration is setting in.
I have a colt who is lovely. Almost too broke with quick feet but not the brightest colt I've ever sat on. He is patterned and otherwise ready to add speed with one BIG exception - he is nowhere near consistent changing leads. Sometimes he'll switch in the front but not in the back and other times he won't switch at all. He's balanced enough to make the turn and somehow not fall on his face but of course it's not as fast and snappy as it could be if he would just CHANGE HIS DANG LEAD! The times he does manage to swap in the front and back, the turn is scary quick. Like centrifugal force will sling you sideways quick. At a lope. It's awesome. But inconsistent.
He picks up whatever lead you ask for, will simple change through the trot or walk in one stride. I've worked figure eights at the lope for days. Fixing to break out the ground poles. Nothing helps. I've never had this problem before. Usually a colt will not change leads, fall on their face and learn. Not this guy.
How do you teach one to change leads, especially in the back?? |
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 Expert
Posts: 1302
Location: California | TrackinBubba - 2015-07-08 6:14 AM OK Folks smarter than me. Frustration is setting in.
I have a colt who is lovely. Almost too broke with quick feet but not the brightest colt I've ever sat on. He is patterned and otherwise ready to add speed with one BIG exception - he is nowhere near consistent changing leads. Sometimes he'll switch in the front but not in the back and other times he won't switch at all. He's balanced enough to make the turn and somehow not fall on his face but of course it's not as fast and snappy as it could be if he would just CHANGE HIS DANG LEAD! The times he does manage to swap in the front and back, the turn is scary quick. Like centrifugal force will sling you sideways quick. At a lope. It's awesome. But inconsistent.
He picks up whatever lead you ask for, will simple change through the trot or walk in one stride. I've worked figure eights at the lope for days. Fixing to break out the ground poles. Nothing helps. I've never had this problem before. Usually a colt will not change leads, fall on their face and learn. Not this guy.
How do you teach one to change leads, especially in the back??
Lope him on his counter lead down the long side of the arena on the fence. Pull his nose into the fence so his shoulder is out of the way, and set him back onto his hind end (rate him) then put your outside leg into him and push his hip while kissing to him. Sometimes the younger ones need you to push their hip and then give them a good kick to kind of exaggerate and push them onto that lead. The goal is to get the hind end to switch and then the front end. (It's okay if it is ugly at first, they usually figure out it fairly quickly) By pulling their nose into the fence it pulls their shoulders out of the way and pushes their hip towards the lead you are wanting to change to. I have done this with our two year olds for 3 days now and they do almost perfect lead changes everytime already. The kissing really helps too because when you come out of a barrel you can just kiss and a lot of them will change. Once they get the hang of it on the fence it is pretty simple to ask for it anywhere, just make sure you move that shoulder, rate them back onto their hind end, and really use that opposite leg to push them onto that new lead. Good luck! =) |
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 Elite Veteran
Posts: 851
Location: West Texas | Counter canter and teach him to drive from behind and stay underneath himself more. On a barrel pattern you can break down and do a simple where you want him to change and he will figure that out too. |
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 Accident Prone
Posts: 22277
Location: 100 miles from Nowhere, AR | I've had one horse that refused to figure it out on his own. I did a simple change with him over and over until he started to do a flying change when I sat down and swapped my leg placement. Your horse sounds like he's not wanting to move his hip over enough, so I would work on that. I'd have that sucker where I could almost lope him sideways, exaggerate moving his hip in coming off first and then the other way to prepare for the second. That didn't work on my horse because he didn't want to swap leads at all, but it will fix one that's changing in the front. |
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  JMHO
Posts: 1869
Location: Oklahoma | I have a mare that did this. What seemed to help her/me the most was I had an aluminum shoe fit to stay above the fetlock for both hind legs. I slid them on and left them for a few days. No real weight, but she paid attention to where her hind feet were. I took them off when I would ride and then put them back on. Made a huge difference. |
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Accident Prone
Posts: 22277
Location: 100 miles from Nowhere, AR | Dreamin of 3cans - 2015-07-08 2:39 PM I have a mare that did this. What seemed to help her/me the most was I had an aluminum shoe fit to stay above the fetlock for both hind legs. I slid them on and left them for a few days. No real weight, but she paid attention to where her hind feet were. I took them off when I would ride and then put them back on. Made a huge difference.
That's an interesting way to address the learning where their feet are problem. I've always used poles and logs and hills and just let them fall all over themselves until they figure it out. |
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 Veteran
Posts: 138
| A lead departure and change has to start in the rear... so getting a horse moving and two tracking with forward motion will make it easy for him. Ask with outside leg, push his hip in, and depart into the lead.
Once a horse gets consistent and understands how to move his hip off your leg, we start doing counter cantering exercises. Just basically using that leg to hold a horse into the opposite lead of the direction that you're going.
When a horse is strong enough, to carry themselves around in a counter canter without struggling to hold the lead together, we go to straight lines. Start with the counter canter, go to a straight line while holding the horse's hip in the counter lead, then switch legs and allow the horse to push their hip to the opposite direction thus changing the lead. I don't like changing in a figure eight or in circles because it encourages a horse to drop it's shoulder into the lead... usually leaving it's hip high and dry in the wrong lead.
Even if you choose to do a simple change, having control of that hip will make all the difference in the world. I have a horse who I did correct simple changes on between the first and second barrel and he eventually just started changing on his own. |
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