Train for Western Riding

Lesson 8

Nancy Cahill

Copyright Ó 2009

The Anti-Change

A discussion about lead changes would not be complete without a mention of the anti-change.

Once your horse knows how to change, she must learn when to change and when not to change. She must learn that you will put her in a certain body position before you ask her to change, and if her body is not in the correct position, no change is desired. There are two ways to do this.

One way is to control which way her nose is pointed. In the early stages of training the lead change, we traversed the arena with the neck and head bent somewhat toward the lead we were in at the time. For instance, if we were in the right lead, you could see the horse’s right eye slightly.

Bending the head and neck into the direction of travel keeps the weight on the left side making it difficult to perform a change. Only when we reversed the arc could the horse easily make that transition. So you actually taught this all along and maybe didn’t realize that someday it might actually be of more benefit than you thought.

Again, if I am loping in the right lead and I tip her nose slightly toward the right (the lead I am in), this is a signal to the horse to stay in that lead and not change. All her weight is on the left side - that means no lead change.

Your goal is that the horse thinks about the change only when you straighten her … that is her cue that she will be changing. If her nose is tipped, there will be no change.

You can also control unwanted changes by using your weight.

How you ride makes a difference. Your body is always lifting with your horse when she lopes. If she rises up and puts her own elevation in, then instead of riding light, ride heavy.

You can change 120 pounds to 150 pounds by sitting heavy and “dead-weighting” her. Your weight can prevent her elevation, which circumvents an uninvited lead change. So dead-weighting her and turning her nose further into the direction of travel are two ways to keep her on the ground and in the current lead (ie. not changing a lead).

There will be times that you do all of the above and the horse is so good at changing leads that she can still sneak one in on you. When this happens, go back to the same method you used while you were training her to do them in the first place. Stop and put her back in the lead you desired or turn her around a few times in the direction that you really wanted to go. Emphasize that direction. Horses tire of that quickly.

While it is annoying, you can’t blame them for trying to do what you took so long to teach them. They are just overachieving!

Assignment:

Load a short video to YouTube, PhotoBucket or another video hosting web site demonstrating one change to the left and one change to the right; send me the link to view the video.

Send the video link to: nancy.orders@gmail.com