There's something surprisingly so complex about simple lead changes which just makes me enjoy them so much.
That's what we worked on last night in our lesson. I was riding Coal, one of the horses I rode about a month ago. He is a very stiff horse, so stiff that when I last rode him, my instructor actually had me get off so she could confirm that he in fact can't physically do a turn on the forehand. He also felt wildly unbalanced, so much so that I had to keep my inside leg latched onto his side just so that we didn't tip over and die. Luckily, someone seems to be doing him some good because he didn't feel that unbalanced last night, but he's definitely still stiff. Needless to say, canter transitions can be difficult on a horse that resists the bend.
He does have a lot of good qualities though. He's short and compact, and he uses himself pretty well. Last week on Harvey we worked on downward transitions and getting the horse to use their hind end, but I realized (quite by accident) that Coal is already pretty good at that. He has a lovely kick-start canter (when you have him bent) so that you know he's really using that hind end of his.
Anyway, I am a big fan of simple lead changes. In the Winter, I was working on both simple and flying changes with Walker (although being much less successful with the latter in our tiny arena - there was simply not enough room to execute a flying change without me running us into the wall). But I must say I like the simple changes better. There is so much more involved. You have the downward transition where you really need to make sure that the horse doesn't simply dive forward or slow down more than necessary. You have the change in the bend, which for stiff horses, is a very important component. And you have the upward transition which you of course want to be more balanced and less strung out. With a flying change, you have none of these transitions, and while they're not simple by any means, in some ways I would argue that there's less involved.
I have to say that I was pretty proud of my work with Coal. I'm not going to get too far ahead of myself and say that we were getting them every time. This is a horse who is difficult to get to pick up the canter from the beginning, let alone switch canter leads. We started out quite lovely and were getting our changes each time, but then, of course, I started to let my guard down. I stopped exaggerating the bend like he really needed me to do, and then as I got more frustrated, all my old bad habits came pouring out. Isn't that always the way! So we took a little break and when I came back, I was able to get my brain working again and we ended on a pretty good note.
Speaking of bad habits, I have to start looking where I'm going. I mean, I'm getting much better, but for some reason, I never look
that far ahead of where I'm going. My instructor (who knows me so well at this point) set up a chute in the middle of the arena with two poles so that when you made a figure eight, you should be trotting through that chute. I don't think I trotted through the chute once! I was always to the left or the right of it. We simply blaze our own path, I guess! Stuff like that makes me feel too confined. Probably not a good thing.
