Landing on the left lead

[Whyevernot55]

Hoping for some specific ideas or suggestions for my little mare. I have a rising 6yo OTTB mare who I have had for about a year - she was off the track for a year when I bought her but had not had any retraining. She has come a long way and is doing beautifully with everything. Simple lead changes on the flat, jumping small courses, gymnastics, trail riding, etc. She is perfectly capable of doing some changes over poles on the ground, but we are not pushing the issue of flying changes yet because her canter isn’t quite high enough quality to get good ones - periodically when doing canter flat work and schooling simple changes on serpentines, she will offer a flying change, but she tends to buck her way through them a little to balance, particularly if I am at all forward in my seat. Her canter transitions are solid both directions, and her left lead canter is a little better quality than her right at the moment.

Here’s the issue. The darn mare will NOT land on the left lead over fences. Every. Single. Time. she lands right lead. Even if I am jumping down a line on the left lead and keep a strong bend to the left, we land right. Today we schooled over two diagonal poles on a figure 8 at the canter and attempted to land left even once, and the only time we got it was when she broke to the trot coming into the pole while spooking at the cat in the rafters, and she hopped over it into her left lead.

Any suggestions? After the poles today we practiced some right to left simple changes on the flat to reinforce the idea. I am thinking doing canter poles on a circle and increasing to small fences on a circle might be a good exercise for her, but if anyone has other, better suggestions I would love to hear it.

Edited to add: Details about physical health added in post #7 - short version, mare is physically sound and has been extensively worked up. No physical problems here!

[Foxglove6]

Following because my horse does the same thing

My instructor always gives a lot of suggestions over fences for us: step more into the right leg, lift the left inside rein slightly, etc. But nothing has worked very consistently so far. I honestly think the answer is just that some horses are “handed” and have a stronger and weaker side. Concentrate on your left lead canter, transitions into that canter from walk and trot, bends in that direction, etc to strengthen that side. And eventually it will happen. As long as she is jumping the jumps and giving a good canter pace, I wouldn’t be too much on a horse with nit picking leads after only a year of jumping.

[NancyM]

Sometimes a small buck, or other skip, will be used by a green horse in order to get the lead change done. A horse who does this understands what the goal is, but is having problems getting it done otherwise. Practice makes perfect. The buck will go away in time, with practice. Don’t NOT practice because it isn’t perfect the first time. JMHO.

To practice landing on the left lead, obviously suppling exercises on the flat are helpful. Sounds like you are already doing this. Other than that, place the jump on a circle, and circle to the left over it. A fairly small circle, 15 or 20 m. The “jump” can just be a pole on the ground, or may be a small X, depending on what works for your horse. You can place the pole/X so that you are jumping towards the wall of the arena to help the horse understand that a turn is coming, to balance her self in advance of that, to the left. You can do this under saddle, or loose in a round pen. If she gets it free in a round pen without the rider in place, but doesn’t get it under saddle, your position may be influencing her more than you think.

[findeight]

My horses tended to get real one sided over fences when they were overdo for hock injections? Theyd sometimes do that little buck too, sort of to get all the pieces in that right order comfortably.

Sometines stifle issues also produce that. If she’s never been checked via flexions and a few basic X rays, wouldn’t be a bad idea and it’s not that expensive. Remember left lead problems are often caused by right hind physical problems. And they don’t limp and don’t look sore to any but the most experienced eyes. And ears, walk her on a hard surface and listen for gait irregularities, sould hear clip…clop…clip…clop. Not clip…clop…clip.clop or clip…clop…clunk…clop for example. You can hear things before you see them.

The second thing I would do is just canter more in the flatwork. Just goooo, no circles, transitions, jumps or anything. Go and keep going. Wear a watch to be sure you work both sides equally and NEVER do left first then right every single time you ride. Then they are always tired, maybe sore when you get to canter right and looking to stop because they learn left-right-quit is the desired order.

We fool too much, we ask for a canter then take it away trying to perfect it. Be sure not to fall into that trap. But start with a good lamness work up.

[SillyHorse]

Lots of good advice above. I have a friend with whom I used to school (we’d set jumps for each other, give critiques, etc.) had a similar issue, horse always wanted to land on the right lead. I suggested she raise her left hand about an inch over the fences and bingo, she had her left lead on landing. If you’re satisfied it’s not a lameness/soreness issue, give that a try.

[Spud_amp_Saf]

Some horses are just slower to develop than others, especially if their hind end conformation isn’t the ideal. If your horse understands the concept of leads and lead changes and is able to do them at liberty, then I would not make a deal out of either landing leads or getting changes at this point.

Patience is a virtue in developing the less dominant side. A year in work is really not that long for a racehorse that needs to change its entire way of going and muscling.

Agree about looking at stifles, but with a horse like this, I would just continue lots of forward flowing cantering like F8 says, and get it out of the ring and working on hills and see if you can’t improve the canter overall by improving hind end strength first.

[Whyevernot55]

Thanks for the replies y’all. Should have mentioned that the mare-beast is medically fine and 100% sound. In addition to a pre-purchase, she has been radiographed from top to bottom, had stifle ultrasound, lameness-examined, has had acupuncture, regular chiro by an ACVA-certified boarded internist, has massages, and is generally in perfect physical health. Her mom is very fortunate to have access to all the medical things for free or heavily discounted, and she gets to a be a frequent demo horse for people to learn lameness exams, radiographs, and ultrasound on. (Lucky mare does not always agree that this is lucky.) We also do lots of hacking out on the hilly 100+ acres of land that we board on, and trail riding when whether and schedules cooperate, so hill work is in there.

To clarify, I’m not terribly worried about the changes at this point. Or even changing over fences. We school it without drilling and don’t get worked up. I’m all about slow, steady progress and doing it right even if it takes longer. Since we don’t have real changes yet, it’d be nice to be able to land on the correct lead when we start going places and doing schooling shows this spring, but it’s not by any means our #1 priority.

I appreciate the input that I am on the right track with thinking about cantering fences on a circle, continuing to do simple changes, and generally conditioning. I’ll keep lifting my left hand in mind over fences. We did some cantering poles on a circle today, as well as a couple changes over a pole which she was her usual lovely self about.

[MtnDrmz]

If she is still figuring our her balance, then she just may not be ready to be super ambadextrious (SP?) about landing on leads yet. Sounds like you aren’t in too much of a rush, and that’s good. It takes longer for some then others to figure this out. They can be right handed and left handed just like us, but we train them to be more equal.

Also, landing on leads has to do with the take off just as much as the mid air part, so maybe you need to actually work on the right side to get that stronger, and thus even out her push off the ground so she is not favoring one side. If she does changes thats good though.

Also, if she doesn’t just grow out of it, I’d rather have a horse that perfers one lead, but has a solid change (or will eventually), then one who does not get clean changes easily, but “usually” lands on the correct lead. I’ve ridden both, and the first one is much easier to manage if you do plan to show.

[Atlas_Shrugged]

light stifle blister. land right but go straight then ask for a clean change. In bending lines it is a little tougher, but the AA shows often have those types of lines.

[Alterrain]

If she has a good R to L change, it’s not that big of deal. She’ll figure it out sooner or later.

[phoenixrises]

What about poles? If you are just cantering poles does she swap leads too?

[merrygoround]

Make sure your L canter aides are maintained over the fences while jumping in a 15 m circle. That is, look L, Left shoulder back, R leg back below the knee.

[RugBug]

I would first work on maintaining the left lead over a pole on the ground. Use a circle to help at first and then going straight after she’s built some strength. Then gradually add some height with cavaletti, etc.

Remember that in order to land a lead, they have to be able to put the opposite foot down first. So, to land the left lead, the right front will have to land first. If you try too hard to land a lead, you will create a crooked jump and horse. I would work on strength and balance first and she if she doesn’t get more willing once that has improved.

[Dewey]

Agree with most of the posts above. Build her strength and flexibility with flat work, and the leads OF will come.

For what it is worth, when I started riding my green mare, she had almost no left lead. When I taught her to jump, she landed on the right lead 99.9% of the time.

Three years later, her left lead is actually stronger than her right.

Keep working on the flat with the exercises that have been recommended in this thread. The left lead will come.

[jumper409]

My horse liked to always land left. I started cantering/jumping poles with one side up on the first or second hole of standard (it would look like half of a cross-rail) and it really helped her start landing on the right lead more. I think my horse just had a habit of landing left and needed some repetition landing right to so her body was used to landing on both leads. Prior to this exercise I had tried a lot of different tricks (ie. lifting the right hand to land right, bending, ect.) that didn’t really help consistently.

I think this exercise worked because she had to put more effort in than just cantering a pole but not so much that she felt like she needed to change the lead over the half raised pole. It must have been enough effort to simulate a jump so now she will land right when I want her to or when we’re jumping of the right and landing going to the right. I was also working on maintaining a consistent rhythm and straightness over the poles (there were several set up around the ring). Hope it helps.