At a mixed riding discipline barn, a young hunt seat rider commented loudly that the Prix. St. George dressage rider was on the wrong lead, leading to many chuckles among the dressage riders.

The counter canter is a movement in dressage, and it's one that is not often easy to teach a horse that is accustomed to swapping his lead whenever he changes direction (such as a hunter or jumper).

The counter canter is used to improve a horse's balance. It is not worked until the horse's regular canter is balanced. To sit the counter canter, the rider weights her inside seat bone, with her inside hip more forward.

When teaching horse (or rider) the feel of riding a counter canter, usually the first exercise is a simple loop down the long side of the arena much like a simple serpentine. While cantering out of the corner, the rider makes a small loop heading in toward the quarter line, then back out to the rail. With each pass or practice down that long side, the rider guides the horse further inward past the quarter line and getting closer to the middle, then back out to the rail. At the loop point, where the rider begins to head to the middle of the arena and looping, then heading  the horse back to the rail is where the feeling of counter canter can be felt by both horse and rider, even though they are still going in the same direction.

Doing this exercise will help your horse begin to gain balance in the counter canter without feeling the need to do a flying change to the other lead. It will also help in the training of your horse to do his flying changes in that he will do them when you ask, not when he thinks he's off balance. Once your horse does this exercise with balance, you can gradually progress through other exercises such as riding a square (instead of figure 8 exercise) and maintaining the same lead throughout so that one part of the square (what would be one circle on the figure 8) is in counter canter, and the other square is on the regular canter. In the beginning, do not concern yourself with flexion. Instead, focus on straight, forward and submissive. With practice, balance and confidence, flexion will come. And soon you will be able to ride counter canter off the rail without a problem.