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When I worked with Leo on Sunday, I was very lucky to have the company and watchful eye of Dan. Dan is the only person at the barn that rides a reining horse. Since he is usually off on some mountain, trail riding, he isn’t around the arena very often. When he is though, he will usually give me some pointers (in between the times he’s busting my chops of course).

Again, Leo spent 3 months in training to become a team roping horse and then spent a few years on vacation. Team roping horses are generally asked to pick up their left leads because they really only need to go left. If you ever find yourself in a team roping arena during warm-up time, you’ll notice that you never see the horses going around to the right.

I’m sure this has something to do with Leo being so stubborn about picking up his right lead. Since I’ve been trying to just get him to go without bucking, I haven’t asked him to do anything very challenging. I’ve started to now because in the last few weeks, he hasn’t given me much grief. In fact, he seems to have settled into the fact that he has to go to school now.

With Dan watching, I demonstrated how on a right lead, Leo leans VERY hard to the inside of the circle as though he’s about to round a barrel. His whole body is tilted in a way that my body can no longer be straight up and down. Instead I’m riding tilted with my left shoulder high above my right shoulder.

Dan taught me the way to correct it. While Leo was ripping around in a right circle on his right lead, Dan told me to take the right rein and pull it up towards my left shoulder and then just bump Leo’s bit with it. After I figured out where my left shoulder was, I bump, bump, bumped on his bit until, like magic, he straightened up. He straightened up and went around in a nice easy vertical canter until I asked him to stop. Success!!!