Hello again fellow bloggers or readers,

I have just returned from riding the most wonderful horse in the world! Stella was amazing, today before I left for my ride I decided that I was going to work on transitions and flying lead change. Stella is a Quarter horse and what I find particularly extraordinary about Quarter horses is they are just so dang SMART! Today Stella showed me her smarts.

    My mum and I got to the barn and did our usual thing. Lots of pets for Stella when we get their, tack her up, lead her to the arena and get on. Then we did the warm up and Stella was fabulous as usual:) I started at the canter and told Stella to do a figure eight and asking her to transition down to the trot when we cross over the the center then before turning for the other half of the figure eight I asked her for the canter once again but with the correct lead for the other direction. This was an exersise to prepare her for doing flying lead changes. We did this exersice about five times before I decided to try the full flying lead change. when we got to the center I simply moved my leg back and she, being such a smart horse did a perfect flying lead change. I was so happy after that I nerly fell off her petting her so much!

   This was only the third time I have ever done this exersise with her and she nailed it! This is a great exersise for teaching horses flying lead change and it is a good skill for you and your horse to have so I advise if your horse does not know how to do a flying lead chang and neather do you this is a great exersise to learn how! If you do try practice it do not go for the full flying lead change right off the bat even if your horse already knows how to do it and its just you learning how. You should learn to give a clear canter signal for the right lead before going for the full flying lead change. I tell you this beacause the flying lead change can be very ruff and bounce because your horse will jump in the air and land in a slightly rocking motion for they have swiched leads.

     If you are not one who is ready for the flying lead change yet than try doing the same things just from trot to walk and make sure you are on the correct posting diagonal. also from canter to halt in the center of the figure eight and back to canter and  from trot to halt to back to trot. If you are going to try the flying lead change you should be able to do these exersises to.

    for right now I am just a plesure rider but I still like to challenge my self and Stella or else we will just get bored, If you are one of those people too check back with my blogs and I will most likely have exersises for you to try out!  Also if you have any questions you would like to ask me about your horses bad habits or exersises you would like to know that can help you with something that you horse doesor has, such as stiffness on one side or going way to fast at the canter for you, send me a request for what your horse is doing or even things you as a rider need help with and I will do my best to answer you question in my next blog. Just leave me a comment with your question in it and I will do my best to answer :) I know I am young but you will be amazed about what I can help you with:)

thanks for reading, hope you have a horse happy life:)