Canter leads?

Question

my horse is just recovering from a relaly bad hip injury. the thing is, he is so overprotective of his hip, we can never get the right lead. he'll pick up the left lead and when i ask him for the right one he will get the right lead in the front and left in the back. i know he is fine now, but i guess its a mental thing. i know he has like no muscle in his right hip, but how do i like force him to pick up his right lead?

Answer 1

use ur right leg and move it back to bump his back over to get the right lead   it is called a cross lead  and i care about my question because i have to use my own money to buy them and i am just a kid and have to earn my money

Answer 2

What your refering to is called "cross cantering" and is simply the horse cantering on different leads in front and in back. I would take it very slow my friend in rehabing a horse from a hip injury, we had a filly take a dive at a race, went tumbling over the rail and fractured her pelvic bone while dislocating her stifle and bruising her whole hip severely. We took a whole year to get her back to training, I'm glad we did tho as she went back to racing and won a Grade II event this last fall. Take your time, do stretching exsercizes with him on the ground with the leg, then do lunging in side reins and make sure he is really tracking up to get that rear end muscle working. Once he is fit enough, try to let him go into a big open trot before asking him for the canter, sometimes horses with injuries are afraid to "push off to hard" and won't pick it up from a halt or walk, put him into a big open forward trot and then ask, remember to keep your right leg farther behind the girth and PICK YOUR HANDS UP, big thing with cross cantering horses, keep them higher so they won't drop their shoulder and bulge which will allow him to do the wrong thing. Does he get his leads the right way out in the pasture or on the lunge? If not, make sure he still is not hurting, a horse won't "remember pain" but they will be cautious, so just make sure he is only doing that and not having some type of problem.

Answer 3

Actually, you honestly don't know how the hip feels to the horse.  Maybe it is still sore and the horse feels discomfort from cantering on the right lead.  How about trying to lunge the horse for short periods on the right lead?  Give him time to ease into working the hip that has been injured. It may take months, but with slow work, your horse should start using those muscles again and the problem will be solved.

Answer 4

Do you have a round pen to work in?  Try putting him on the lunge line, if possible, with side reins.  Slightly tighten the inside rein, and work on picking up the canter then dropping to the trot, picking it up, dropping and so on.  If under saddle, you can try the saddleseat method (no matter what discipline you ride) and turn him to the rail.  His body should be at a 45 angle to the rail before you ask for the canter.  This sets up the backend to pick it up correctly.  If nothing seems to be working, have your vet re-evaluate.

Answer 5

Get an inside bend and then give him the outside leg. There's a horse at my barn that will not get the righ lead unless you are bending a lot.

Answer 6

don't canter. Build his muscles up by trotting. You should be trotting him like 30 min everyday and build his muscles up before you even considering cantering.

Make sure you trot him evenly in both directions.

Answer 7

Lots and lots of circles at the trot to help him build up the strength in his hip. Even though the vet cleared him if he's not picking up the right lead something doesn't feel right to HIM. Be patient and give him a chance to recover working. Work lots of small circles to the right and work on your left lead canter. When he feels relaxed and really good then try the right lead, in a circle. Unless he's ultra talented it's very difficult to pick up the wrong lead on a 10m circle. :) But make sure when you get a few steps you go back to a trot. Once he's relaxed again go back to the canter. Transitions will help him build muscle strength.

Answer 8

I used to ride this horse, and he was automatically doing that. I found that if you deepened your thrust and aplied more calf pressure at the same time he would do into a full canter on his right lead, instead of his usual mix.

Answer 9

Shift your weight on your right side if your supposed to be on your left side and turn his head to the outside! Make sure you lunge him a lot on that specific side!

~ savethemustangs96

Answer 10

Like you said, he has no muscle in his right hip which will be the first thing he thinks about when picking up that lead (the first step of the canter on the right lead is the back right foot)

So, in order to regain his confidence and strength (and not to mention prevent hurting him again) is to walk and trot for a while to build that muscle up. Once he is strong enough you can canter in small circles so he doesn't switch leads, but just make sure that he is physically able to do this before trying it, or he might end up hurt again.

Hope that helps! Just give him some time to recover.

Answer 11

You can do more damage by forcing the lead.

The horse needs to rebuild his muscle-tone before he goes back to cantering.

If you had major hip damage, you'd end up physical therapy and you'd work on stretching, walking, etc, before they EVER asked you to run.

Your horse needs LOTS of work in walk and trot, doing LOTS of transitions. Do not forget to do lateral work. lateral work is REALLY going to be one of the best thigns to build that muscle tone in his hip again!!

Completely forget about canter (in either direction- no more cantering.) and go back to walk and trot and lateral work -- let your horse do 'physical therapy' for at least 1 month (assuming you ride 3x a week) before even THINKING about cantering again.