Advice please....

L

lynspop

Well-Known Member
Joined
7 September 2006
Messages
374
Location
scotland
www.trainingtails.moonfruit.com
Am hoping one of you lovely people on here will be able to help me out with this one!
A family who i teach on a fairly infrequent basis have been coming over for some lessons/to hire the school lately. Their youngest daughter who is 5, has a very green 7 year old Welsh Section A who until they bought her about a year ago, had only done in hand showing with a very small amount of ridden work. She has come on a lot since they got her and now happily works at walk and trot off the lead-rein and is fairly responsive to what the little girl is asking her to do. Problems arise though when she tries to make her canter- she is getting really bad for dropping her shoulder and nipping into the middle/ generally shying away from the track as soon as she realises shes going to be asked to canter. What advice can I give these people to try and stop this? She canters out on hacks apparently,so seems to just be a problem in the school. I have been working her a little on the lunge to get her making the transition etc, but these people dont have facilities at home to lunge. The pony is v.small and so there is no chance of a small adult/bigger child getting on to try and sort her out.
What I dont want, is for the little girl to keep getting thrown off everytime canter is attempted. Not good for her, or the pony who is still very much learning her trade as a ridden pony.
Advice or thoughts please? (and excuse the essay!)
 
I’m no expert by any means, but have you tried lunging the pony in canter with the kid on board? Just wondering how the pony would react to that? If the pony did look like it was going to nap towards you, you could catch it quick with the lunge whip? Would the kid be good enough to cope with that?
 
Im not sure if the kid would stay on- shes pretty tiddly and not that strong, and the pony is super fast when it naps in!
Part of the problem is it needs more ridden education, and pairing something like that with a 5 year old is not really the best way to get that.....
 
Umm, well totally making it up now but what about making a dummy for the pony (like the one old Monty Roberts uses) and free schooling the pony in canter? Do you think that would help at all? If you had a few of you, you could keep the pony out on the track?

Either that or get someone who could run fast to long line???!!!!!
smirk.gif
 
my 6 yr old was cantering on a welsh A in her riding lesson whilst being led, mind you she still fell off(welshA's are very bouncey) which knocked her confidence alot.
 
Does the girl ask for canter as we would? ie. sit to the trot and then ask.

If she does, maybe rather than do that, she could ask the pony to trot faster and keep pushing on the trot until it breaks into canter. This may (if you're lucky) fool the pony a little and she might just canter on.
 
I know they are small, but they are very strong and very quick to suss a rider out - i will probably upset everyone here, but i would get a light confident teenager on board and get this sorted now!! As i am short i was often asked to do this for people with small ponies, and i'm not mega light - but i haven't damaged one yet!!
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Top