Landing on the correct canter lead - how?

[MissSBird]

So I am continuing with my adventures into this jumping stuff...

B is 6 this year, and we can now tackle courses fairly confidently. Nothing big still, but I no longer feel sick about the prospect and he will pop anything I ask him too generally. Sometimes takes a little look, but always goes.

I've been looking at videos of us jumping, and I'd like to be able to start making our course riding more flowing by influencing what canter lead he lands on. At the moment I'm frequently coming back to trot to change it. But I'm not sure how to go about this, and it's never something he's worked on before.

Can anyone give me any advice?

Thanks!

 

[AprilBlossom]

Don't underestimate the power of your head - look in the direction you are going as you're going over the fence - a brilliant instructor once taught me the weight of your head is quite significant and by looking the way you want to be going you'll position your weight automatically to aid landing on the correct leg.

She set up a series of fences, all on one or two strides, with one first fence then three in a row afterwards. One stride out from the first fence she would call 'right', 'left', or 'straight' and it would encourage me to look for the fence and subsequently have a correct lead to then ride over the second element...if that makes sense?! I found it very useful anyway!

 

[TiaPony]

Don't underestimate the power of your head - look in the direction you are going as you're going over the fence

Agree with AB, keeping your head up and focusing on the next fence automatically sets up your body for continuing on that canter lead. I was always taught to give slightly more rein over the fence with the rein of the canter lead I wanted to land on and my horse learnt to either land on that lead or to pop a change in when she landed.

 

[philamena]

AB's exercise sounds good. I'd also suggest being very disciplined about it and once you've decided you're going to teach it, making sure that every time you jump you're also working on this along with whatever other exercise you're doing, rather than sometimes doing the exercise and other times not bothering. I have to remember to be disciplined about this kind of thing: it's easy to think you can work on something in one session and then on something else in the next, I have to remind myself how the horse doesn't know when you're trying to teach it something and when you're saying 'remember that stuff from yesterday, we're not going to do it today but remember it for tomorrow..' kind of thing - IYKWIM!

Practise counter-canter strike offs (on straight lines for the babies) so you know the horse is used to listening for your canter strike off aids rather than pre-judging which leg purely based on what direction it's currently going in... and be sure when trying to influence with the rein over a fence that you OPEN the rein to create the bend that you want, rather than pulling back on it, which can mess up the horse's back end over the fence.

Some trainers I've used have had me subtly change the bend and my weight aids to the new direction a couple of strides before the fence (but not enough to bring about a flying change in horses who do them, just a subtle warning) which works well with some horses but I think confuses others who are less established... other trainers have told me to leave it until take off. So different people will have different 'correct' techniques, and different ones for different horses.