Velvet – Flying Lead Changes

This is a post from the woman (me) who had given up on FLC as Velvet would never do them consistently…in 5 years.

This is a post from the woman (me) who was shocked to discover that Velvet had passed the L2 Flying Change Lead task the other day while in a group lesson.

Here’s a another shocker:  I decided to work on the L3 task…counter
canter. You must canter once around an arena or area in a counter canter.
Velvet has been making great improvement in her ability to counter canter.
Last year we were a ruderless ship while going around a corner at the counter canter, inspiring a lot of quiet screams from the passenger (me).

SO…I tell her to counter canter and as we go around a corner, she does a
flying lead change. Huh? I say. Then we did a figure 8 to try and get back
into the counter-canter mode again. Nope, we did a flying lead change in the
middle. Huh? sez I.

I will set this up so that she can’t do a flying lead change. On the next figure 8 trip into the middle, I told her to go diagonally through the center. There was none of that come through the middle looking the way you’re going and then changing your focus. Nope, we just went on a nice diagonal through the middle with my focus straight ahead.

Yep…as soon as she figured it out that we were going a different direction …flying lead change!

GOOD GAD!!!! She’s become a gaited reining horse!

I leaped out of the saddle, ripped the saddle off her back and took her to
the treat place in the barn. Velvet and I have tried for 5 years to do flying
lead changes!  She was rewarded greatly for her effort that night.

Counter canter will come later!