A: Be sure you are not forcing your horse to do what you need, as that will create a battle that you’ve probably already experienced. Try this: make it difficult to trot and easy for the horse to walk. Try not to correct your horse, try to direct him, meaning, keep your body in a walking frame of mind. This includes your hands, so if the horse gets to trotting get out of time with his feet and the reins until he comes back to a walk. The horse needs to feel what your body is feeling, so be sure you are not causing the horse to trot.
This is a difficult question to answer without seeing your horse, but that is a pretty good idea to get you started. Good luck and good horsemanship!

A: Adding finesse to the flying lead change comes easily when we step away from the maneuver itself and focus on the foundation of creating a quality lead change. There are three pre-requisites to creating a clean, smooth lead change without the head elevation that currently plagues your ride. They are:
• Body Control: Achieving independent control of each portion of your horse’s body is vital. The horse’s chin, shoulders, ribs, and haunches are all separate entities that must work in unison in order to perform a lead change. Your horse should willingly and softly displace each body part at a walk, jog and lope prior to focusing on a change. A horse may draw his head upward in a display of resistance to compensate. Return to exercises that supple and help promote body control such as counter-cantering, turns on the hind or forehand, trotting on the rail alternating haunches or shoulder-in exercises.
• Roundness: When the horse pushes his croup down, moves with his hocks deep underneath an elevated ribcage, and flexes at the poll and withers, he gains better balance and is in the optimum position to carry himself with a rider on his back. This balanced form facilitates maneuvers that would otherwise be difficult for a horse, like the lead change for example. If your horse cannot consistently maintain roundness and collection at a lope, he may struggle to perform clean lead changes without elevation of his head. His body being ‘strung out’ (not round) may be most evident in the lead change, with his high head working as an indicator of the lack of roundness throughout his body. Add roundness and collection work to your routine.
• Guiding: Your horse should willingly guide through the use of your seat, leg, weight and rein with little or no deviation from your command. His steering should always follow your eyesight. It is important when focusing on lead changes to solidify that a change of direction does not necessarily equate with a change of lead. Using counter-canter guiding exercises will help insure that anticipation from repetitively changing leads in the center of the arena is not the cause of your horse’s head elevation. Review the rudiments of flying lead changes to search for loopholes that may have inadvertently promoted or allowed your horse to resort to head elevation. By breaking down the maneuver into smaller tasks, you will be sure to see improvement. Combine this with good timing, feel and patience for a seamless lead change.