right lead... WRONG LEAD!

For a bit of a spell now Fire and I have been struggling with the right lead. Not the "correct" lead per-say... but the correct lead, to the right. We use to be able to get them both equally just fine, but now magically the right canter lead has gone AWOL and does not want to come back.

For those of you non-horse people, a canter lead, in short, is when a horse picks up the "running" gait and the can either pick up this gait with their right or left legs starting. This is called a lead and helps them in turning etc. but there are "right" and "left" leads then. Our right, is now wrong.

So to get back on the point... we're broken. Now that I've had the saddle fitted, I can sit in the saddle and sit with Fire much better. I'm seeing a difference and though I can feel that he sometimes get frustrated that he can't throw me off my game, I'm finding that I can correctly place his shoulder better and get him to correctly pick up that right lead like I want! Now that it has been a while with him favoring the left (just like people, horses and right and left "handed") he's become stronger on that other side. So now I'm trying to work him a lot more to the right. I spent my ENTIRE last ride doing transitions up and down and only to the right. It was exhausting, but I found that we were getting the correct lead correctly and quickly and cleanly, so I was happy with our progress.

But then what happened? I went left.

I decided we would just do a little bit of work left.

I asked for a bit of canter left... and he picked up the right lead. FML.

Oh to have a young horse.