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Teach your horse to canter on the correct lead – and improve the transition – with this leg-yield exercise

Bethany Stone Bethany Stone

    • Young, weak or unbalanced horses sometimes pick up canter on the incorrect lead. Over time, this has potential to become a habit.

    Thankfully, there’s a simple flatwork exercise that requires you to ride a few steps of leg-yield to help your horse pick up the correct canter lead.

    Aims

    • Correct your horse’s flexion
    • Connect the horse into the outside rein
    • Improve the canter transition

    The setup

    You need: a 20x40m or 20x60m arena

    Diagram showing the leg-yield to canter exercise to get the correct canter lead

    How to ride the exercise

    1. Once warmed up, turn onto the three-quarter line in trot.
    2. As you pass X, begin to leg-yield to the track. You can sit or rise, depending on what’s best for your horse. Aim to hit the track just after the corner marker.
    3. Ask for canter as you reach the track going into the corner.

    Things to note

    1. Avoid over-flexing

    When ridden correctly, your horse should show slight flexion away from the direction of travel. Too much flexion often leads to the shoulders leading, and often means the horse drifts rather than crossing the legs.

    However, ensure you maintain the flexion, and the connection into the outside rein, into the corner. Alongside balancing him, this is what helps set your horse up to lead with the inside leg in the canter.

    2. Ensure your horse’s body is straight

    While the shoulders should be slightly in advance of the quarters, they should not be dramatically so. Likewise, the hindquarters should not lead.

    3. Maintain the rhythm

    Look to maintain the same trot you had while riding large up the three-quarter line and throughout the leg-yield.

    Some horses lose their engine in leg-yield, dropping behind the bit, while others might rush forward and away from your inside leg aid.

    Ultimately, the contact and rhythm should be consistent. You may need to adjust your aids to help maintain them, or remain in a rising trot to help keep to a regular rhythm.

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