How do you keep a head horse from fading away from the steer?

A head horse that fades away from the steer — drifting wide during the run and leaving the header too far from the steer to make a good delivery — is the opposite problem from shouldering but is equally damaging to the run. The header ends up throwing a stretched, awkward loop from too far out, and catches become inconsistent or impossible. Fading is usually rooted in one of two causes: the horse was corrected for crowding the steer early in its training and overcorrected to the point of drifting wide as a default, or the horse is genuinely uncomfortable running at close range to another moving animal and is self-preserving by creating distance. Both require the horse to learn that running at close, correct distance to the steer is safe and rewarded. The training response for a fading horse is to use the inside leg — the left leg for a header positioned to the steer's left — to push the horse toward the steer rather than allowing it to drift. This is the mirror correction of the shoulder-in fix: inside leg holds the lane toward the steer while the horse stays straight and parallel. The horse must understand that the inside leg means move toward the pressure, not away from it, and that response needs to be installed in flat work first before being asked at speed next to a moving steer. In the roping pen, work on slow cattle where you can patiently hold the correct lane with your inside leg without fighting pace at the same time. Reward the horse for holding position at the correct distance, and over repetitions the correct lane becomes the horse's default rather than the wide, drifting approach it has been defaulting to.