Teaching Horses to Land on Either Lead

Training a horse to land on either their left or right lead is important for all divisions of jumping in order to improve balance, rhythm and confidence during a show. Make sure a horse is comfortable landing on the right and the left lead with advice from an experienced trainer in this video on riding and jumping horses.

We're going to work on an exercise that is going to work on teaching a horse to land on both leads, and for me, teaching a horse to land on both leads is imperative whether you're doing the hunters, jumpers or the equitation because a balanced horse is the best horse no matter what division you're competing in. It's very important in the hunters to get your horse to jump square in front with both its knees even. If it is comfortable landing on both leads, the horse is going to be more comfortable jumping evenly with both front feet, and their knees are going to be up and even. If a horse is more apt to land on its left lead all the time, you will find your hunter pictures looking that it's starting to drop its left knee a little early, because it's so confident on that lead. So by teaching the horse to to land on both leads, you get a better jump, a better looking jump than the hunters. In the jumpers, teaching the horse to land on both leads is not only important because of balance, but you're going to be faster on a track when you don't have to worry about a lead change. In the equitation it makes for a smoother picture. Not only is it better for the rider to be riding on the same lead the whole way through a straight or bending line, it helps with position and the smoothness of the rounds. So, we're going to do a couple exercises out here that are very simple, that you can modify to work for your horse to help getting them balanced on both leads. Ned is going to start off the left lead. I like to start over a basic cross rail until the horse is comfortable doing this exercise over a small jump. Your horse may need to start over a raised cavalletti if the cross rail proves too difficult. So start at a cross rail. Try to get your horse to do three circles each direction. We're going to start on this horse on the left lead. So we're going to ask him to land the left lead three times in a row. If he does that well, then we're going to do the same exercise the other direction. So now we're working the right exercise. The horse is soft in the corner of its mouth. It does it successfully, you want to walk, you want to give him a pat and then you can work your way up. There is no pressure to do it over bigger jumps. Do it until your horse does it well over little jumps, and then move up to a more sizable three-foot oxer. So, now we're moving up to a little bit bigger jump. This horse was clearly comfortable landing on both leads over the cross rails. So now we're just going to add a little bit more height because he's just going to have to work a little bit harder off the ground. I feel comfortable doing this exercise up to about three feet on this circle, and then at any time you can practice getting a horse to land on leads over a little bit bigger jump. However, this is the best strengthening exercise you can do because it's really working on keeping your horse comfortable without making them strain over the top of the fence and this horse makes it look easy. Horses that are very dominant on one lead will shift off the ground or right a little bit harder in their bit. So, it's an exercise I use almost every day in my warm-up to get horses more comfortable, get a better jump out of them and get them soft and supple in the corner of their mouths. He did it well to the left, so now we're going to do it to the right. Good. As you're doing your flat work coming to the jump you just want a nice organized canter. This shouldn't be done on a super collected pace, and it shouldn't be done on a gallop. Ideally you want to do it at the canter you're going to canter around your hunter equitation course on. You can see this horse, Ned doesn't have to pull it really hard right. He doesn't have to use a ton of outside leg. You want to get confident enough at this exercise where you use very little aids to lead the horse on either the right or the left lead whichever one you want. So, we quit, we give Dillon a nice big pat and then we move on to whatever else we want to do once we're done with the exercise and again I can't tell you how much I use this in my preparation for all three of my types of horses, hunter, jumper and equitation horses. It's a great warm-up to get horses loosened up and supple.