How do you personally ask for a lead change?

[TheHotSensitiveType]

Like @beau159 said, it comes easy to some and not so easy to others… My mare is one of the not so easy ones. It took a year for us to get clean changes both directions. I don’t know why, but it was really, really hard for my mare to learn what her feet were supposed to do. It also didn’t help that this is the first horse I have worked on changes with…

Even now she must be very forward, and I have to cue her at exactly the correct moment or she will either not change or will be late behind. I also can’t half-halt her right before a change or it will not be clean without a big tap of the whip where I then get launched vertically a couple inches out of the saddle because of the leap.

So how do I ride them… I ride them like I stole them! I have to think “FORWARD, round 1-2-3; FORWARD, round 1-2-3; FORWARD, round 1-2-CHANGE-3” with a matching strong leg cue at CHANGE of switching my leg position to the other lead.

[SorrelGelding1]

If I am working with a young horse who is new to leads or even an older horse who is always on the wrong lead… and I want the left lead…I bump bump my rein and ask the horse to tip their nose to the right, just enough to get the eye, once the horse has relaxed and is soft, I just hold it, I use my right leg to push the hindquarters, and encourage with my body, left leg, and vocal cues to move into a lope. To me, this encourages the horse to reach with that left leg first. It’s a little weird, holding them in the bent shape, in the beginning. If the horse is lagging, I just use more left leg to encourage it to hustle. If the horse loses the lead, I slow down to a trot, and just ask again. It has never failed me and eventually, I don’t have to help them.

[Mukluk]

At first I would say in a loving voice “Angel dear can you please switch leads in three strides?”
But that didn’t work too well.
Now I say “Angel dear, please whatever you do, don’t switch leads.” Voila!!!
See it has to be her idea!!!

[aregard]

@retiredhorse

And if we don’t get it, I ask for a downward transition so we’re not continuing on unbalanced and cross-cantering. I don’t want to teach a horse how not to get a change.

This is a good note for me. I know how to ask. Mostly I get it. But if I don’t get it, I panic. I didn’t know if I should just stay with the new bend and keep asking, or if I had to go back to the old bend, then straighten again, then ask again, or what. The failure is the confusing bit for me.

[retiredhorse]

@aregard

This is a good note for me. I know how to ask. Mostly I get it. But if I don’t get it, I panic. I didn’t know if I should just stay with the new bend and keep asking, or if I had to go back to the old bend, then straighten again, then ask again, or what. The failure is the confusing bit for me.

A late change – where they catch up behind – is/was a major fault, though it seems to be less so now. But, regardless of scoring, it’s still not a “real” change. Or not one that I want to teach, anyway. (barring the exceptions like an older horse that’s swapped front-to-back forever as an “auto-change” or where trying to school a true change would cause more problems.)

So if horse doesn’t change within 1 stride, I do a downward transition nicely/tactfully, not “punishing” the horse; regroup, get the balance/straightness/rhythm back; and try again. I also try to make sure I am asking as correctly as I can (I ask myself, if I miss a change, if I am REALLY REALLY REALLY balanced and straight, is the horse between the leg and the hand and prepared for it), with the correct timing, so the horse is set up for a successful change. And then a lot praise when they get it. For horses that are learning, I usually only ask once each way and either end the session there or go to something else.

I do not try to rush the horse into the change or try to throw them even more off balance in hopes they swap the lead. That just seems to cause more confusion and less likelihood of horse offering a quiet/easy/true lead change. I want the horse relaxed through the change, too. Like it’s another canter step for them, not a big deal.

[SWatson]

Witchcraft.
That is what my mare understood best.
She thought lifting my inner shoulder and lightly moving my outer leg behind the girth was just way too much, so we stuck with witchcraft.