Flying Change. Part II
Posted by Irina Yastrebova on Wednesday, September 11, 2019 08:52 AM
A flying change is an exciting moment for a horse. Compare it to a little jump. Also, you must treat it with the same respect you will treat your horse over the jump. You MUST not interfere, muscle or try to force a horse to change by pushing him off balance.
Naturally forward, uphill horses with a good jump have enough push and air time to change. Watch them at liberty - they play and change leads clean and effortless. These are the best horses to teach flying changes.
Horses who are downhill, quick to put their hind legs down, fast in the tempo and stiff in the back will have very hard time with changes.
There is another category of horses who are very loose in their bodies. They can easily go disunited and do not feel bothered by it. When they learn changes they can easily twist sideways to avoid jumping through. These horses are challenging to develop good, reliable changes, because mistakes can happen very easily. Sitting well on such horses is also difficult. They can be quite athletic and push a rider off balance during changes.
Some horses strongly prefer one lead over another. This is straightness issue due to lack of suppleness, symmetry and coordination. These horses can change to the difficult lead but often only in front and stay either disunited or change hind end a few strides later.
From above paragraph it is quite clear that quality of canter plays direct role in quality and success of a flying change. Here are a few components that are important:
  • Good jump
  • Straightness - energy flows up and through the body, not sideways into one of the shoulders. Shoulder fore!
  • Back is supple allowing a horse to place hind legs well under with each stride
  • Balance - a horse doesn't feel like he is running downhill and has to put his legs on the ground quickly to catch himself. He feels that each stride is a push off the ground upward and forward, land and push again.
  • Which brings us to tempo and it's control. Canter must be slow in tempo and high in energy. It is the rider's responsibility not to chase his/her horse onto the forehand but improve the jump, lift and energy without speed.
Exercises to help horses improve and develop canter:
There are a few exercises that are my favorite when it comes to developing canter. I will list them in the order of easy to difficult ones.
1. Leg-yield in canter - can be done away from the lead and into the lead. Variations include amount of sideways jump, level of forwardness/engagement/collection. Simplest version is a spiral. Straight leg-yield is more difficult and easier to make mistakes. Mistakes are speeding up, particularly tempo, changing rhythm (four beat), falling into one shoulder (usually leading one), twisting head/hips, losing alignment. In leg-yield away from the lead, or plie it is important to sit for the lead, sideways displacement happens during flying phase of the stride, jump must feel slow and uphill.
2. Counter canter - can be done as simple as a shallow loop to a quarter line with a young horse, or as advanced and collected as 10 m circle with a more trained horse. The important component is levelness of horse's body. Most of the time watching counter canter I see horses overbend, tipping in and swinging haunches out. This is a mistake. Inside leg and outside rein for the canter lead are main aids to help to balance the horse. Riders often tipping into the turn themselves and they must sit deep and level regardless of how much their horse pushing them in. Extending and collecting canter inside counter canter is a great suppling exercise, changing flexion and even bend (in ribcage) can be of great benefit to some horses.
3.Shoulder-fore in canter - After you become familiar with simple versions of leg-yield and counter canter your horse is ready to accept shoulder-fore in canter. This is simply straight canter on a more sophisticated level. Horses like dogs like to canter crooked. Shoulder-fore is all about the position of the shoulders not about the bend. Said that, however, the horse must be flexed and accept inside leg by lifting through the ribcage. Horses can cleverly avoid engagement by slightly twisting their hips out and dropping inside shoulder in. This is easy for them to do in trot, in canter lead mechanics make this challenging. However, if they are allowed to be quick and lean on the bit they can do it.
4. Walk-Canter-Walk - will help your horse to understand push from behind and learn to strike off on any lead just from the aids not from the location or direction. This will greatly improve readiness for a flying change. However, as I said in a previous blog it is very important to ask correctly and wait for the horse to execute the transition rather then push, "lift", or chase a horse into it.
5. Travers in canter - can really improve horse's suppleness, help him to slow down his tempo and sit better behind. However, in order to get these benefits the horse must execute true travers and not some kind of crooked version of haunches falling in. Many horses do that on their own. Correct travers requires bend, level shoulders and hips, straight level head and the stride that feels rather up then down, light even contact. Travers can be done along a wall, on a circle or across diagonal.
P.S. I just started playing with flying changes with my 5 year old Arroyo who has quite nice jump in his canter. He has shown effortless flying changes at liberty since he was a few days old :) I introduced them in a big field after doing some counter canter work to get him a bit tired of the old lead. Then I went across diagonal, slightly leg-yielded him into old lead or into new outside rein. Then I asked for a change and tapped with a whip. He jumped into big stride and switched his lead. I did it once each direction and finished my ride. My whip stayed in the same hand (left) for both leads. It's action was to create a bit of excitement and bigger jump. I got that.
Happy riding...
 
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