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The very first thing I would suggest is taking him to the best vet you can 
find, and having a thorough lameness exam.  Often a horse starts a pattern like 
this because of pain or incorrect training.  It's nice to know the difference, 
or at least rule out pain.  

I once borrowed a mare while my mare was in foal.  This mare literally could 
NOT canter on the right lead.  She could canter to the right on the left lead 
in a 10M circle (without even falling down) but could not canter on the right 
lead.  

This retraining HAS to be done on the lunge, or a fairly small round pen 
where you have pretty good control over the horse's movements, and it's easier 
to 
start out without tack.  It gives the horse one less thing to worry about.  
Also, the tack may be exacerbating the problem by digging into his shoulders, 
or 
forcing him to carry his head in a way that he can't find his own balance.  

I worked with this mare on the lunge line, asking for the canter from the 
trot, zillions of times.  Every time she took the wrong lead, I said"ANH ANH, 
and 
brought her back to the trot.  Every now and then she would take a few 
correct steps, and I would praise the heck out of her, let her hold it as long 
as 
she could, then when it looked like she would break, I'd bring her down to the 
trot and do something else.  

It's partly muscle memory, and takes a long time, and MUCH patience.  You 
have to absolutely recognize when the horse takes the first wrong step in the 
gait, and you have to be quick with the sound effects, so they realize right 
away 
they've done it wrong.  And even quicker with the praise when they do it 
right so they know what your after.  You will be lucky to get three strides at 
first, but if you keep the sessions fairly short at first, like 10-15 minutes, 
or 
a couple of good strides, and quit after the first series of good strides for 
the first week or so, you'll get better results.  Once the horse can reliably 
pick up the leads correctly, even if he can't hold it, then you can ask for 
more than one series of correct strides per session, and maybe stretch the 
session out.  

It's really hard work for a horse to change a habitual way of going, and if 
you get frustrated, or ask for too much too fast, the horse will get frustrated 
and quit trying.  Don't even think of trying to ask the horse for the correct 
canter under saddle until he can hold the correct gait on the lunge for as 
long as you ask.

I had the mare about three months, the first month I couldn't even ride her, 
because I wouldn't ride her until I had the gaits confirmed.  But she did 
figure it out, and once she did, things went pretty fast.  By the end of three 
months, I could get flying lead changes on demand.  Now, You have to understand 
that I am not really a horse trainer.  I had someone suggest that I restart 
her, and it worked.  The miracle is, it worked even though I was not that good 
a 
rider at the time.  But I did know what a correct canter looked like, and I 
was persistent, and she got it.  Best of luck, it can be very satisfying to 
retrain a horse.  jeri

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