Teaching a school pony flying lead changes.?

Question

I want to teach this one school pony I hack to do a flying lead change. It's not necessary at all to teach him, but I would like to any way. He's not old, so I'd like to teach him something he'd go a long way with.

Answer 1

Can he jump?

If he can jump then set up a cross-rail and canter him over it. Head straight to it and as you go over the jump kick with your new outside leg and raise your new inside hand. Come in from the left and going to the right. (landing on his right lead) Then try coming in from the right and go to the left. (landing on his left lead)

Then if he gets his leads over then cross-rail then make the cross-rail smaller and do the same thing. When asking him to land on his new lead make sure to give him clear commands. Still coming in from the left and going to the right and vise versa.

Once he gets it over the small cross-rail, try getting his leads over a pole.

Once he gets it over the pole try without it. By cantering down the side of the arena and turning in the middle. Then go straight and once you're around 3 feet away from the wall ask him for his lead change. Always go from the left to the right and the right to the left.

Hope you could understand what I wrote. Good Luck!

Answer 2

make sure your horse is responsive when asked to canter and (for example) when asked to canter on a straight line you can dictate which leg you want without relying on asking in a corner or on a circle. canter a figure of eight and most horses change naturally so apply the aid when the horse changes and praise him. keep practicing over a number of lessons so the horse associated the aid with a flying change. you should ask for a change when you feel the outside hind come under the horse. use weight(seat aids subtly as well) . good luck it does take a long time to teach something new x

Answer 3

Eventually teach them to pick up the correct lead from a standstill then they will know the aids while in motion. You can also do this over a rail having them from a trot to a lope as they go over in the middle of a figure 8 or put it a horse length or two before a fence so they switch(from a lope to a lope not trotting on this one) by picking up over and "jumping" into the new direction will naturally land them on the right lead and if they dont make sure to stop them and make them pick up the correct one. dont always change direction over the rail they will anticipate, circle two or three times spiratically mixed with the figure 8's. pick the exercise to do first depends on how well your horse is at lope departures and what your comfortable with

Answer 4

If you have to ask here how to do it, I doubt you are going to teach a school horse how to do anything.  It would take an expert to deal with that...on their own horse...don't harass this horse with such lofty goals.

It's bad enough that he is a shool horse.  How much abuse do you think he should have to endure?