If you've ever struggled with getting the correct canter lead with your horse, you will know how frustrating it is and how nerve wracking it can be when you're at a competition!

Over the last 20 years of riding hundreds of different horses and training hundreds of different students, I've learnt a thing or 2 about perfecting it and here are my best tips:

Your seat aid and riding the canter strike off from your seat isn't everything.

When it comes to refining the canter lead strike off we certainly focus a lot on how we use our seat so that we can keep balance, engagement and impulsion into the strike off, but if we have a problem with our canter leads this is not where we focus for 3 reasons:

• If you haven't established a light, soft seat you can be hollowing and disengaging your horses back away from you making it harder for them to get the correct canter lead and use their back

• The flick of your hip into the canter for the strike off doesn't clearly communicate to your horse what lead you want when you're teaching them. They have to figure it out for themselves.

• It is hard to use your seat exactly the same every time. Nailing that flick of the hip exactly the same way every single time you ride is nearly impossible and so also fudges your communication with your horse.

Bonus tip

• If someone else rides your horse you can GUARANTEE they won't use their seat the same way your horse will so your horse will be confused about canter leads all over again.

If you are a cuing genius and you still aren't getting the canter lead - in particular there is a lead your horse prefers - there's a good chance your horse is working with crookedness.

If your horse favours loading one shoulder over another or engaging one hind over another, you will have a horse that is developing crooked.

END RESULT: Your horse will favour one lead over the other!

This is part of our responsibility for our horse. Essentially we are our horses physical therapist and we need to ensure our horses muscle building happens evenly.

A common theme with a number of riders is that they also practice the lead that is easy because they don't want to do the work either!! Or the want the rewarding feeling of getting the correct strike off which leads to the horses muscle development becoming more and more uneven.

Aside from this creating issues in accuracy and quality in the way our horse works, it also has long term impacts on our horses soundness.

Working crooked results in behavioural problems and painful back problems that leads to bucking, rearing and bolting. But the tricky part is that it isn’t necessarily easy to identify if your horse is working crooked when you are riding.

If you are wondering if your horse is developing crooked but aren’t sure how to find out or how to correct it, check out our Virtual Gait Analysis service.

The Virtual Gait Analysis service provides you with Katie’s detailed overview of where your horse is “cheating” out of the effort required to develop their body correctly, and then provides you with 2 lesson plans as your next best steps in developing your horse for straightness and soundness.