in today's video I'm going to be doing some canter work with Nocona and I
figured it would be a great opportunity to take you along with and kind of
explain the canter the different leads how to ask for a canter and
how to ride a canter this is my Appaloosa mary Nocona i'm riding her
bareback and i'm riding her with just a halter and I've divided my lead rope to
make two split reins here in Nocona is just doing a slow trot and we're gonna
go down to a walk briefly and then ask for a left lead canter departure out of
the walk a canter is a three-beat gait that all horse breeds are capable of
doing Nocona is on what's called the left lead right now if you watch her
legs her left front leg and the left hind leg are both the leading legs
through this gate in this video I'll be making a lot of transitions so here
you're gonna see me drop to a trot and then I'm gonna be asking her for the
right lead canter so now you can see her right front leg is the leading leg and
same with the hind when a horse is traveling to the left you typically want
them to be on their left lead when they travel to the right you typically want
them to be on the right lead this is different I am actually asking her for
which lead I want here I'm gonna ask Nocona for a left lead she's going to
strike off with her right hind leg so keep an eye on that right hind leg as it
pushes her right there into that canter so you can see the right hind leg is
driving her now the diagonal pair which are the left hind leg and the right
front leg land together followed by the left front leg so that's what makes it a
three-beat gait we have our outside hind diagonal pair inside front I'll be doing
a lot of transitions throughout this video a transition is basically a change
that is made within the gate so right now I'm on a left lead canter but in a
moment I'll be dropping her down to a trot and then I'll be asking her for the
right lead canter now here we're in a trot atract as a to beat gate so the
diagonal pears work together now I'm going to ask Nocona for a right lead
canter as you can see my left leg came back a little bit that cues her which
lead I want now my right leg would have kind of opened up
the hip and come forward a little bit so that just kind of sets her up for her
Cantor transition now when a horse is traveling to the left but they're on the
right lead that's called a counter canter a counter canter is a more
advanced movement and can be very difficult for a horse to pick up it is
different from when a horse just randomly picks up the wrong lead
cross-firing is another thing that can happen when a horse is cantering it
usually happens when a horse is really out of balance so basically with
cross-firing what they do is they'll pick up say the left lead on the front
end but then the hind end is on the right lead and it makes a really awkward
twisting movement when you're riding it's very uncomfortable
so cross-firing is is not desirable at all and is not something that a horse
should ever be encouraged to do and it's something that needs to be corrected
because it can lead to the horse getting injured from putting that awkward strain
on his body as I'm doing this circle I make sure that Nocona is on the left
lead because if I asked her to counter canter through that size of a circle it
would be a little bit too difficult for her
so there we pick up the right lead being in a counter canter on the shorter end
of the arena and especially through the corners can be really difficult for a
horse it's something that they need to build up the strength to do over time so
when I first started counter cantering this mirror I didn't just put her in a
counter canter and then force it for a lap after lap we got just a few strides
and then we come back down and move on to something different a simple lead
change is when your cantering a horse you come down to a trot for minimal
steps as you can and then back up into a canter on the opposite lead so that's
what you saw me do right there as I asked her to go from a left Lee canter
we did a simple lead change and changed direction
now she's cantering on the right lead so that would be the correctly going in
this direction and I'm gonna ask her here for the left Lee canter and you can
see she picked it up wrong she just didn't understand what I was asking or
it was a little bit hard for her so I kind of waited until we get through the
corner and now I'm gonna ask again and you can see if she got it wrong again
but then did pick it up right and I rewarded her by giving her a little
scratch on the neck to let her know that was exactly what I was looking for when
a horse picks up a wrong lead by mistake I never make a big deal about
I simply start over and ask them to pick up the correct lead and reward them as
soon as they get it now I'm going to talk about cues for the canter the way
that I cue a horse to canter might be different than what someone else does
but basically I'm gonna bring my horse to a trot now watch my right leg my
right leg came forward just a little bit and on the other side my left leg comes
back a little bit to ask for that lead so and as I'm doing this circle here you
can see that I'm shaping my horse with my legs and with my body I turn and look
where I want to go and my horse follows now as you watch my legs right here my
horse kind of leans to the right a little bit and so I use my right leg to
let her know to move over then my right leg just sort of comes forward a little
bit and I cuter with the outside leg to go into that right leg canter so here
you'll see me how my right leg is back I'm asking for the left leg canter again
it's a little hard for her down in that corner her left lead is her harder lead
so counter cantering is especially hard for her on the left side it just takes a
little extra time for them to become stronger on that weaker side it's kind
of like a person who is right-handed if you're used to always writing with your
right hand and then suddenly you have to switch and start using your left hand
it's gonna be really hard and a person can learn to write with their left hand
but it's probably not always gonna be as easy as it was with the right hand
something I'd like to point out is my communication to this horse could be
more clear if I had on a bridle with a snaffle bit but since I'm riding her in
just a halter I'm trying not to really do anything with my reins and just
letting her go forward so I don't care what her head is doing or anything like
that and she's feeling very minimal pressure from me like right there I took
a hold of her a little bit because she did not respond to my body when I asked
her to slow down so I took a hold with my reins to make sure that I got that
stop so but with a snaffle bit the details are so much more clear and it's
a lot easier to bend the horse and just see subtle little bending and changing
it makes a huge difference to the horse and you just can't accomplish that as
easy in writing and halter a lot of people have a really hard time feeling
what lead they're on and how I explain it is basically if your cantering your
horse in a straight line I want you to really feel which one of your legs
feels like it's shifted a little bit more forward and when I say which one of
your legs I mean from the hip down you'll feel it in your hips so if your
horse is on the left lead your left leg will feel more forward than the right if
you're on the right lead your right leg should feel more forward than the left
if your cantering in a circle on the left lead traveling to the left it
should feel pretty comfortable if you're travelling to the left on the right lead
it should feel like a little bit crooked so that's a good indication that you're
on the wrong lead if it just doesn't feel very comfortable a good way to feel
what a lead is like is to do it by using your own feet so at some point or
another I think everybody has pretended that they are a horse and cantered
around so what I want you to do is get up and just canter a circle to the left
on the left lead so your left leg would be the leading leg and then I want you
to switch keep going left but switch to the right lead and you'll
see a huge difference it'll feel really awkward and it's the same thing when
you're on a horse kind of hang out in the bottom of Tanks and along the side
eating algae yeah if Nocona were fish that's the fish she would be gotta love
her though well I hope you enjoyed this video if you did please be sure to give
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so much for watching bye