Lead changes have never come easy for the BHB. He was never the foal out doing tempi changes in the pasture for fun... heck, I think he only ever did lead changes in the pasture when he was making sharp direction changes while galloping around like a wild fieldhunter! Even then, I'm fairly certain the hind and front ends did not match up at all in the changes. As a 4 year old out fox hunting, I could never get more than a partial change (cross-cantering) from him when galloping around steep corners before he would change back to the prior lead, so I always knew lead changes were going to be our struggle.
The BHB was starting to school changes and get them around the same time that he became footsore this spring/summer, so he started becoming really resistant to the idea since he associated it with pain. The good news is that I can always get them near 100% over a jump or pole, so the concept is there, it just needed lots of struggling, brainstorming, and trial/error to happen. It's kind of like our pirouettes used to be-- the walk was amazing right off the bat but the canter took some innovation to get him to understand it.
As soon as the BHB took his (forced) vacation days after coming home from Kentucky, Heather started trying changes again on him. At first it went about the same as before, where he would drop his shoulders, put his nose in the air, and run as soon as he was aided. I tried them a couple times too, but rarely got the hind end at the same time (or even with a couple strides) as the front. I watched Heather ride him one day and told her she might want to try them from a pirouette canter. The next day she did and both directions happened without any of the previous issues! So she's going to be trying to build off of that and make them super consistent before asking him to do them from a more forward canter.
I may have found a part-leaser too! She'll be trying out the BHB tomorrow. As much as I'd love to keep him to myself and in full training, it's just too expensive for me to do so at this time. He's such a fun horse to ride and loves to work, so hopefully sharing him with someone else will be a good thing!
