My horse wont take his right lead?

[c0wgurl042]

My horse will not take his right lead. I dont think he is sore an ywhere. He isnt ridden much and when he is he isnt ridden hard. Can anybody help me please?

[galadriel]

Sometimes an old (hidden) injury or previous training can affect a horse's ability/willingness to take a right lead.

If neither of those is the case, sometimes the horse is just one-sided:
http://lorienstable.com/articles/handling/400-one_sided_horse/

[racipaci]

As every horse has a good side and a slightly worse side to be ridden on I would imagine he is not getting the correct lead on his slightly stiffer side. if he is not bending correctly it will be difficult for him to establish the correct lead.

You need to make things easier for him by ensuring he is bending a flexing by doing small ten metre circles and changes of rein, leg yeilding etc to make him bring his hind legs up underneath him.

I find with my youngsters that a good trick to teach canter is to come up to the corner you want to canter in, do a ten metre circle in that corner ensuring the horse is bending round your leg and as soon as you hit the track ask for canter. As long as you as ask firmly the horse should be in the correct position to obtain the correct lead. make sure also that when you ask you are balanced, sitting upright and don't tilt forward, if you lean forward the horse will be put of balance.

Good luck

[EventingRed]

i agree to use corners to help pick the correct lead up. i rode a horse who wouldnt engage himself in the back and had a BIG problem picking the correct lead up. do alot of transitions. hope i helped.

[Kate F.]

From the horse's point of view, the "correct" lead is the one that is easiest, most natural and makes him comfortable - and he will always pick up the "correct" lead from his point of view. From our point of view, we want the lead we specify - so to make sure our idea of the "correct" lead and the horse's are the same, we have to make sure we are making our choice of lead easy, obvious and comfortable for the horse.

To check whether the horse has a physical problem that is making him prefer one lead or the other, try cantering him without a rider on a circle (round pen or lunge - doesn't matter - but if on a lunge, without side-reins or anything that could disturb his natural balance.) If he chooses the correct (inside) lead in both directions, we then have to look at why it's different with a rider on top. (If he still chooses the left lead, even when going to the right, this suggests a physical problem, and I would get veterinary help.)

Assuming there isn't a physical reason, one common problem is the rider tipping too far to the inside when asking for canter. As you say he won't pick up the right lead, and if you are right handed, this is one possibility. Most right handed people have a tendency to tip to the right - and this can easily push the horse onto the left lead - especially if the horse is relatively un-trained.

Try consciously shifting your upper body a little to the outside (left) and let your right shoulder come a little forwards and your left shoulder a little back when asking for right canter, and ask in the corner where it would be natural for him to choose the right lead. If he still chooses the left lead - put him onto a circle. It will feel a bit strange - but that's ok - pretty soon he'll want to change leads to make himself comfortable. Make sure your weight is well centred as you go round the circle. If he drops into trot - ask for the canter again, and will probably pick up the right lead. If he carries on in outside canter, let him go perhaps once round, bring him back to trot then ask again. Some people say to bring them back to trot immediately they pick up the "wrong" lead - but I find it works better if they have the chance to realize the lead they chose did not make them comfortable, and have the chance to choose again. It's not about punishment - he chose the lead he thought would make him comfortable - let him work it out for himself.

When he picks up the right lead, make sure you are sitting very softly and balanced to reinforce the choice, and pet and stoke him to make it a double comfortable experience!

Good luck and be patient. It takes time to break old habits (your and his! :-) ) - but he will chose the "comfort" option every time once you both find it.