I love this thread! So much great information and humor.
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Sure! I think because my horse had to manage his hind legs. He reminds me of Contucci in his use and articulation of the hind legs.
My horse has had jumping lessons and he’s really sensitive to weight changes. He has to lift all four legs over a ground pole and rearrange them in the air. He gets the rearrangement better when he has a bit more time to think about it and has a good moment of suspension. The poles tell him it’s coming, so he knows. He can over-react but his work stops when he’s correct and listening. This is how he’s trained. We have a bunch of new horses on the property this week and a cow clinic last week. He cares less about the cows than their overturned feeder. OMG!!! We’ll work on this more when everyone leaves. His gaits have been fantastic in his fear. But he doesn’t learn much when he’s genuinely afraid and physically tense.
We’ve come so far. So happy to relay approached to a super hot horse.
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If you get one change that’s late behind and one that’s late in front…does that average out to two clean changes? Asking for a friend. 
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This logic makes sense to me. Yes, I believe it works that way.
Today’s lesson agenda- “Pretend we are not going to work on changes but really aim to work on changes the moment it feels right.”
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Ah yes-- the sneak attack aka guerilla changes. Have also been practicing this philosophy. Good luck today!
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I am loving the descriptions in this thread. Thanks all, for the laughs.
Totally worked! lol we were cleaning up simple changes on the long side (counter canter to true to counter to true, etc). And while taking a walk break, I told my trainer that I still didn’t feel confident that my pony was physically capable of a flying change. She said he absolutely WAS and think about all these other horses she trains who can do changes. “Yes, but those horses are not THIS horse.” I made her very tired.
We went back to the exercise and suddenly “boop!” He did a straight, calm, clean change when I collected and straightened to come down from counter canter… I think he just likes making me eat my words sometimes.
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I think for this horse, he has to mentally associate the aids and the expected results. He overthinks everything and has to mentally slow down. He can do this over a pole. When he gets it, he gets it. We’ve gotten the most clean changes over a pole. I put the pole in the same spot in the arena which he will likely associate with the mechanics of the change. Eventually, the pole will go away. I’ll try the method you described as well. It took him a bit to figure out counter-canter because he didn’t think it was a thing. Then he said “Oh, I’ve got the counter canter. I’ll ignore your aids to show you that I’ve got the counter canter” I really think his brain gets in the way of most of his work. He overthinks everything. My friend used to say that if he had thumbs, he’d take off in peoples’ cars, hack internet accounts, and build a bunker in his pasture.
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@J-Lu could you post a video sometime of your changes over the pole? I’m a h/j person and also can’t stand the method of teaching changes over a pole because it makes them late (and also often creates a rushing problem I don’t want to have to fix at the jumps). I might ask for a change of direction over poles or cavaletti on a horse with established changes depending on what pattern I’m doing over the poles, but I expect that to be the same as asking the horse to land a lead over a small jump, not really execute a flying change.
But I am genuinely curious to see how you are getting your horse to do clean changes with a pole.
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I used a pole with my horse when teaching changes and I very much regret that choice. I didn’t start out using it, but we just couldn’t get her to change. We had made the mistake of too much counter canter and she is naturally very balanced and so it was hard to convince her to change when she was happy to CC a 10 meter circle. After trying many things we finally decided we might need to try the pole because she did know how to pick up a new lead over the jump when asked. Well, the pole DID in fact help her understand that we would ask her to change leads sometimes. But now, a year later she still thinks lead changes require jumping an invisible jump, so they are inevitably late behind. And it’s hard to make the correction because once she leaps up with her shoulder it is hard to stop that jump mid air. We have tried getting her quicker behind, tried from a more collected canter, tried from an extended canter, and many other things and ultimately she just simply thinks what we’re asking for is a jump in the air. We have gotten a few clean ones out of her, it’s not that she’s not capable. She just thinks we want somethign more and bigger.
all that to say I have learned two lessons: 1. don’t make your horse a CC pro before teaching changes; 2. don’t use the pole
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Oh does this hell sound familiar. I had a horse who was started the same way (focus on CC, and over a pole), and it was hell fixing the late changes. He always changed as if a pole is there. Regardless of how good the canter was and the riders timing. This is why when I see someone using a pole for flying changes I want to set the damn pole on fire and burn it down 
maybe there is some way to get a clean/good change over one, but I’ve never seen it so I am intrigued if anyone has a video of this.
I’m working on this with my horse and it’s going pretty well. He knows what’s coming when I go across the diagonal and sets himself up for it but I think it’s more of a timing issue. I’m trying to leg yield him over onto the new lead but he’s not quite getting it. I think I need some pro help to get him over the hump.
I wonder, when did trainers go from, curios, horses change leads over a pole, to let’s use that to teach changes?
We also used counter canter as it’s own thing, to help canter balance itself, not as a spring board to start changes.
That came later, helping confirm flying lead changes any time, there also.
We asked for changes while cantering, not across the whole diagonal, but after a circle back to the track, the last of it as a diagonal so we ended up almost there in one lead and asked first a simple change with half halt and a step or two of trot, which made sense to the horses, as we were now going in the other direction, requiring the other lead.
After just a few such, don’t overdo that, we tried a flying change and most horses caught on right off, if asked properly they changed all around, not dragging behind.
Why close to the track? So horses would be less apt to fall onto the forehand and/or rush the change and where in a few strides we were turning anyway in the direction of the new lead, no real room to rush, but obvious need to keep it together.
Some horses learned from practically the first try, others took a bit longer, but it seemed an easy way to teach flying changes.
Of course, your horse by that time was well trained and very responsive and understood all aids well, we were not surprising them and the riders trained and had practiced on already trained horses before attempting to train.
That was so long ago, no telling what all they use today. 
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This is how I trained changes on my jumper mare years ago, and one of the exercises we’re using with my current horse. However, dressage trainer says trot steps are NOT ALLOWED and we have to do simple changes through 1 step of walk. Trot steps = keep working on the simple change until there is no trot before we can think of asking for a flying change. Now I wonder why.
Any such way will work, you go by what works best for that horse at that time.
I would say a laid back push type horse, you may want more impulsion, a hotter one, you may want a stronger half halt and even a bigger transition.
Then, those transitions are just a time or three, horse should catch on by then and perhaps start offering the change?
Once the horse catches on, you don’t keep going to the same place to do the same, start mixing it, so horse doesn’t start anticipating and being so proud of what he can do, to be disappointed as told no, not here, not yet, you have to wait to be asked.
Horses once flying changes learned may use them as an evasion when confused, don’t want to train them but with specific goals in mind.
You can end up with a horse that does a skip change and never actually jumps completely in the air to change legs. They’ll always do a little almost trot step to get the new lead.
Ah. That is probably why. Horse already does an unfortunately impressive “1 step of trot” change that is not requested (usually falling out of balance on a curve in CC, etc)
I wonder if you could ask for the change more emphatically that moment he loses balance before the trot change. Sometimes you need to surprise them into jumping in the air a few times (tap with the whip usually works).
We’ve actually gotten our first “accidental” change by going back and forth between true and counter canter with the intent that he would anticipate and just do a flying change. The next step is getting him to associate the change with purposeful aids, but I was so happy that he gave me a change at all that I leapt off him and shoved carrots into his mouth instead of continuing work.
The biggest general problem for us as a pair is that at the first sign of trouble, he dives on the forehand and I tip into a half seat, so when we “fall” into the trot, we aren’t set up to do much of anything useful. The flying change and GOOD simple changes happened when I concentrated fully on keeping both of us up and back. If I could just ride better…I think he’d get it pretty quickly at this point
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I did mention that the pole seems to help THIS horse by giving him airtime to think about rearranging his legs. I didn’t say it was a good way to teach all horses changes.
I’m trying parts of a vaquero cowboy’s approach that targets the correction after the horse doesn’t make a clean change. I watched him train changes on a Silver medalist’s super tense horse today (he has reasons to be tense from a past experience and the owner says he’s so easily wound up). He’s had the horse for a week and she came out to watch today and ride all weekend. She said her horse was being super calm when he missed the changes with this guy’s approach, unlike when he missed the changes with her. We all had a good discussion on changes today.
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