Everything Horses and Livestock® Magazine Feb 2020 Vol 5 Issue 1

Everything Horses and Livestock Magazine ®

Importance of Lead Changes by Matthew Jobe

What can a child’s stick horse teach us about leads? Well, grab one and take off jogging to the left. On e of two things will happen, your left leg will be leading followed by your right left and you will smoothly jog. Perhaps, you throw your right leg out there first followed by your left leg as you are going left. You will promptly trip and fall and give the folks watching a great laugh! The same awkward stumbling feeling can happen when loping a horse in the incorrect lead. Let’s break down where the legs are in a lead.

Left Lead:

begins by pushing off with the right hind leg. Then, in unison, it moves the

left hind leg and the right front leg forward. Lastly, the horse moves the left front leg forward.

During a lope in a left lead, a horse moves its legs in the following order. The horse

Everything Horses and Livestock® | February 2020 | EHALmagazine.com 14