I have nothing to add, but as a crappy ammie who’s hoping to work towards changes next year, this thread is a super helpful list of winter homework, so thank you!
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Thanks, guys. All of this is helpful. I’m really looking forward to riding tomorrow and having a lesson so I can get my trainer’s assessment of where we are in our readiness. The last string of lessons was more show focused and then we took a break.
While my guy is only 8, his turnout buddies are in their late 20s, and he is just the type to stop and stare rather than run around. This is great when we’re training something new and I flub it multiple times in a row. My TB mare would have lit me on fire, but current pony isn’t bothered in the least and is happy to keep trying to figure out what we’re doing.
I don’t really want to make this take longer than it needs to…I would love to be ready to show 3.1 in June, but I also don’t want to rush the process. So some help with making sure he understands that concept at the beginning is appealing, because otherwise it does feel like the blind being led by the “used to be able to see but is now functionally blind.”
I’m probably capable of this in terms of experience, understanding the aids, and body control. I don’t feel confident about the timing though and that’s what I’m worried about despite my trainer’s confidence in me. That I will internally panic in the moment and make it worse than it needs to be.
My trainer has said that it’s becoming time for me to have a lesson on her GP horse to get a feel for P/P before he’s too old…I will admit to finding him intimidating so I haven’t pursued this heavily, but maybe a lead change lesson on him is a good place to ask to start.
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Agreed! But I encountered push back because she thinks I can do it. She doesn’t like her riders to default to an easy option just to avoid going through something hard, but does step in when we cannot ride, are really struggling with something, or need an assessment of “is it me or the horse.” It’s been really helpful to hear that a couple flubby lessons won’t ruin him and that’s easing my concern.
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A lot of riders end up jinxing themselves by making it out to be some monstrously hard movement in their head. If you’ve learned to ride correct walk-canter and canter-walk transitions, you can learn to ride a correct canter-canter transition (i.e. a flying change). If at all possible, I would highly recommend a lesson on that GP horse first. Simply feeling some correct changes will give you a huge leg up in training them.
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For the timing issue, I definitely had mental blocks and would go across the diagonal preparing, preparing, preparing, and ask when it was too late and we lost the quality of the canter. Short diagonals helped, but the biggest help was just counting down the strides “3, 2, 1, change” and doing it.
Please, please, please take a few lessons on the GP horse. These generous schoolmaster types are so hard to find and when someone offers, they genuinely want you to ride and get something out of it. Do the lead changes on him and see if you can get 3-4 on the long side or diagonal. I think a lot of people who haven’t ridden many changes or tempis do too much in the change. All you really need to do is hold the horse straight and change your seatbones/hips to allow the new inside hind to jump through. No changing bend, no throwing your legs back and forth, no twisting your seat or shoulders…
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That’s what’s giving me pause though. He’s not the type to suffer fools, but my trainer wouldn’t put me on him if she thought it would go poorly. He’s just huge and big moving and I’ve only been on my 15hh peanut for the last 3 years, so I expect his gaits will throw me for a loop at first.
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Timely discussion for me. Last lesson, my instructor said that we should start working on flying changes as our simple changes have gotten good and consistent. So I have practiced both our simple changes and our change through the trot, shortening the walk or trot steps.
The other day, I decided to see what would happen if I asked for a flying change. So far, not much! 
He bounced a bit but proudly continued in counter canter ( we have only worked on counter canter recently and he tends to offer his latest accomplishment!) He also did a one-trot-step change. We left it at that. Lesson next week…
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This is such an important point it should be pinned at the top of the Dressage page 
OP, take as many lessons as you are allowed on the schoolmaster. Rule #1 is never pass up an opportunity to learn from an upper-level horse!
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Yes, to emphasize again! You might not be able to get the schoolmaster to do a trot/canter transition or walk without jigging/half steps, but I’m sure your trainer won’t just abandon you up there to figure it out on your own.
I’d put people on my upper level horse and they’d ask for a canter with too much outside leg and he’d charge off in a crooked medium trot. 
A few times people couldn’t get him to stop passaging if they were tight in the trot. But as long as the horse is safe, you are not hurting him or his training up there.
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These are such good learning opportunities. One of my first schoolmasters lessons way back… the ask was pick up left lead canter on a 20m circle. I ended up doing about 400 tempi changes on said circle because I wasn’t holding my seat stable. Probably would have taken years to find and fix that problem, but that horse did it for me in three lessons.
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I put Mum on my warmblood mare
Vin was going too far to the outside of the arena to the point of stepping on and over the logs.
I told her to take her left leg off.
I haven’t got my left leg on.
In the end I said i know you have not got your left leg on but I want you to physically pick up your left leg and take it away from her side.
Vinnie went straight. No other horse has told her that. In the end Mum needed a replacement hip.
With hubby he kicks every stride without meaning to. I mention it all the time. He was put on Ben at the riding school and Ben reacted to the legs going on all the time. It lit Ben up. My instructor just turned to me and told me he was not going to ask him to canter.
After a walk break it was a different horse. That was because Ben had decided to ignore his leg aides just like his own horses.
Other horses tell us what our horses do not.
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Well, had a great lesson and homework to get our canter-walks back to where they were. I’ll have a lesson on my trainer’s horse in 2 weeks, and hop on a friend’s big WB before then to re-adjust to being on a much larger horse (without getting stuck in passage). I’m looking forward to it, and had a really fun ride!
My coach did tell me to calm down about overthinking the changes, that we’d find the right exercises for the horse, and my timing was just fine. So all is well.
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We sound similar with level of show experience and horses. My mare would NOT perform a clean change to save her life in the field. She just didn’t see the point I suppose.
My trainer (silver medalist) has installed changes on her and they are more than likely around 80%. I knew she would be a difficult mare to put changes on just b/c of her natural proclivities against them. It took about 1.5 years (she would train the changes and then back off b/c she would get eager in the 2nd level work).
If you have a trainer you trust and you’re both patient, then it can go very well. I was told training the changes can be like a yo-yo and my mare showed that. She would get very eager once she understood the concept and sometimes make a mistake b/c of her eagerness. Like it was mentioned upthread, focus on the canter work.
Also, pay attention to how your horse tries. I couldn’t hop on and try the changes/attempts early on b/c she would offer an enthusiastic buck to assist her. It has decreased and now they’re blah. If your horse isn’t reactive and you trust your trainer on everything else, go for and hop on!
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Well, I am one data point.
I am an amateur, and not “naturally talented” but I work hard.
Some 10 - 15 years ago I taught my then 20+yo mare to do flying changes with the help of my trainer. (I was the one riding, but my instructor was giving me detailed instructions, though not “yelling”.) It went pretty smoothly. My instructor never rode my horse, who was a TB xQH, and not naturally-built-for-dressage.
In addition to the exercises others have mentioned, we did a lot of canter - small half circle - half pass back to the rail, continue in counter canter. And then later we did the same exercise, asking for the flying change as we reached the wall/rail.
I had, about 10 years before that, ridden single changes on an already highly trained Lusitano (at an Equitation school in Portugal), and it certainly helped to know what it was supposed to feel like, but I do not think it was a necessary step.
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I’m working this exercise as well! Also doing a half turn (walk) on the rail, immediately picking up canter for a letter or two, coming to walk, and starting again with the half turn the other way. This got us into a really nice collected canter this weekend.
So cool that you got to ride a schoolmaster in Portugal! I bet that was an amazing experience
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Was the over eagerness an issue in showing the canter serpentine in 2.3? We waited to start changes mid-season so that didn’t become an issue, but I wonder if the delay was worth it.
Yes it was!
But each time I got off my legs were so weak I could barely walk (I had lessons twice a day for a week).
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No, it was more of a strength issue. Her go to is to buck any time she needs to balance in canter work, so she was throwing them out left and right in the begging.
Today was my first actual time trying to get changes on her however and my trainer mentioned that it could give me issues in my second level work.
She did say to be very direct in the canter and the lead in the counter canter. For me, that is exaggerating my outside leg placement to make sure it stays back instead of in the front.
What we did to avoid inadvertently changes at second was to hold back on practicing them a few weeks before a show and only used the single bridle. You never really know how it is going to go and don’t get discouraged if it takes a while. Even if we were not actively practicing the changes, we were always improving the canter quality for the changes. So you can definitely work on that if you don’t feel confident enough to train the changes alone.
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Well, I rode my trainer’s schoolmaster and I did not even try changes. It took a good chunk of time for me to be able to just trot and not passage! Super fun and educational though, and now that I’m not nervous about riding him (he deserves another medal for putting up with this), we’re going to do these lessons more regularly so I can keep learning. But I got to feel half steps, piaffe, and passage, which were all new! And a VERY collected canter!
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If you could teach a h/j horse changes and if you could correct/install a change on a h/j horse with a bad/sticky change, you are capable of doing this.
I prefer my hunters to have a true clean change, and straight. I also rode in the Eq a lot, so I don’t like a horse with a true “auto” change. Needs to have a button. I’d had horses with one bad change and also worked on sticky changes a lot, but other than OTTBs that done really count IMO, I hadn’t started from scratch with one until my last horse. He was anxious about it, and I had to really break it down and get the half half installed well. Once he was prepared, the changes were easy, and they got approval from my dressage coach.
I will say it’s true if you install a front to back change, that is harder to fix than no change. I bought a horse like this (who had been doing changes that way for a few years already) because he was perfect otherwise, and we can get away with it in the hunter ring even though I don’t like it. The stars really have to align for me to get a truly clean change, but we’ve been working on straightness and getting him a little quicker to the aids, and they are a little better but he may never get a reliable dressage change.
That said, getting a few front to back changes in your process isn’t going to mean you can’t fix it along the way. It’s far worse if they learn to do a half trot skip step to get out of the cross canter.
I am in the camp of teaching changes young before your counter canter is very good. At least to get the sequence of aids and the mechanism of the change taught. I don’t worry about how collected the change is. Forward and clean is just fine in the beginning. I go back to counter canter later.
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