April Trainers Tip “Leads”
Probably one of the best and easiest to use tips that I could offer, would be a solution to an old problem of mine, that of picking up the correct lead every time. I'm sure this scenario is familiar to almost all of you at one time or another-- You are competing in a performance class and doing well until the announcer calls for the first upward transition to the canter, or lope. As you begin to make the transition, you realize that you have no "feel" of your horse's mouth in your hands. Too late to make changes, you ask for the lead anyway, and it happens again! The lead is wrong, and you've lost a good opportunity to place well. I wish I had known a long time ago just how simple correcting this problem can be.
For many, the transition into the canter requires pulling the head to the outside to "open up" the inside shoulder, to insure that the horse elevates the inside front leg first. This method works, but the drawbacks are that it definitely isn't elegant, and it exposes the rider to the risk that the horse will "drift" to the center of the arena as the lead is taken.
This method is preferable, however, to my old standby of simply doing mostly nothing with my hands and just using my outside leg. I call this method the "poke and hope" technique. It works about 50% of the time (unless your horse is "bomb proof" on his leads.) In this situation, your horse takes away your ability of directing him by moving behind the bit as you attempt to push him to it. Since, at this point, there is an absence of contact with his mouth, your horse is free to decide how he will take the lead. What also enters into the equation at this point is the fact that the reason he is behind the bit is most probably caused by your horse "tightening" his body as he moves away from your leg instead of relaxing his body.
To remedy this situation, brush up on your leg aids. Pay particular attention to building a nice smooth response using an outside hand/rein along with an outside leg to move your horse's shoulders laterally as he complies with the leg cue and steps forward and sideways into a counter-arc. Once this response has been developed on both sides, switch the pattern and go into a 15-20 foot circle. At a walk, ask your horse to counter-arc to the outside of the circle. To accomplish this, use an inside rein and inside leg combination, along with a widening of your outside hand away from your body. The effect of this is to open up the outside shoulder by gently indicating to your horse with your outside hand that "this is the direction I want you to travel". For example, if you are circling left, you would be using your inside leg and slightly elevating your inside hand (which would be your left leg and hand) to push your horse's shoulders to the right. As you are doing this, widen out your right hand away from your body and gently "nudge" or take a feel of your horse's mouth as if to say "this is the new direction that I would like you to travel". Your horse should take a crossover step or two with his front legs, to the right. As you and your horse get good at this, you will realize that if you were a few feet off of the arena rail and asked for this same move, you would shift your horse's body (the front end) to the rail slightly. Isn't this the same position that his body would be in if you simply pulled his head to the right? It sure is. However, the big difference is that his head is not turned into the rail and instead is looking exactly where he should be going! Practice just this move for whatever time it takes for your horse to do this easily, with almost no effort. When this occurs, you will also realize that your leg aid has become so smooth that instead of telling your horse "it's time to get tense, now" when you touch him with your leg, your horse is actually accepting your touch and using it simply as information about where to put body parts! This is as it should be!
Once the above move has been mastered, simply ask for one or two crossover steps before you ask for the lead with your outside leg, and I guarantee that your horse will take his lead smoothly, and correctly! By using your legs you will have requested of your horse that he "address the bridle". By utilizing a counter-arc you will have put him in a position that will enable him to move to the bridle without being trapped directly with both of your hands and the result of this is his willingness to move forward to the bridle without becoming tense. By repeating this until it becomes easy, you will have bolstered your horse's confidence and changed his mental pattern from saying "no" to your requests to a pattern of continual "yeses". Good Luck, and have fun!
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