Canter help please! Not sure where to go or what to try...

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Lill

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Well remember my thin TBxWB mare? Well she's not so thin now, you can only see a few of her ribs sometimes now and she looks so much better! She is still lacking muscle but thats a work in progress.
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Her canter i am finding very hard to sort out. Her trot has come on lovely now, and she'll trot in a nice fairly consistant light outline. I spend most of my time with her at the moment in walk and trot so this is good!
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However i have just started asking her for a few short bursts of canter too and her canter wasn't exactly great when i first rode her but i think its even worse now!
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She's like very very bouncy, not in a regular rhythm at all and if i'm not careful to keep her bent to the inside she canters round with her head looking at the outside fence and her body going forwards! Which isn't exactly desirable.
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So any exercises i can do to help her? Am not really sure where to go next?
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I will ask my instructor for ideas on Saturday but any ideas to help in the meantime would be great.
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tbh i'd get her back checked, if she's not bending at the ribs at all there might be a physical reason why. if she can bend beautifully in trot though...
i'd keep the canters short, lots of transitions, stay in a light half-seat to let her back work, use your inside leg to send her forward in canter so she can use herself and straighten herself a little, (this will help with the balance and rhythm - the trouble is that it if feels disorganised and unbalanced then we want to slow it down, but actually the best way to sort it out is for the horse to be encouraged to go forward more and use the inside hind leg in particular.)
then bring back and trot, circle and rebalance if necessary, praise, short canter again. keep the inside hand light but asking for slight bend, use outside hand for half-halting and gently containing the energy created by your inside leg, if that makes sense. make sure you keep your inside shoulder back to suggest the inside bend to her. hope that helps a bit!
 
She's not bad on the lunge though its just when i'm on her!

Kerilli:

You are right, i do want to try to slow it down! Try to slow it down and collect her together but its not really working lol!

I shall give it a go, will try pushing her on in the canter for one circle and then coming back to trot for a circle and so on. She just feels so clumsy.

Her trot is really nice now, and i spend a lot of time in trot as i've been told that is the gait that will build muscle the best? Is that right?

Have been doing small circles in trot, one at each marker, and lots of figures of 8 and changing the rein to get her to bend and become more supple.... and some leg yielding... she also tends to fall out through her shoulders and drift sideways - so you can imagine the state of the canter at the moment!! Not easy, but she has quite a powerful canter so i'd really like to work on it.
 
When I got my horse 4 months ago, he could barely manage 1/2 circle of canter (he's nearly 6 but very green). I've worked very hard on his walk and trot, and really not worried too much about the canter. About a month ago, during a lesson, we tried some canter, and he managed it fine, so much so that I can now do quite a lot of work in canter with no problem at all. So the answer to canter problems is not necessarily to canter! Establishing balance and suppleness generally will go a long way to improving it. If they fall out through the shoulder you just end up hauling them round the circle which doesn't help at all. Loads of trot/canter/trot transitions will also help.
 
She is (we think) around 14yo but not done much for 5 months (roughly) so lost all weight and muscle...

Well i don't think i'll do too much canter, a little each time maybe?

Yes she does fall out through her shoulders but she turns very well off your outside aids (something i struggle to get with Blue!) but then you sort of have to prop her up a bit to stop her drifting!!
 
When me and my brother Michael got Rusty, he had been left in a field, so we were starting from scratch! we found, with some help from our instructor, circles, and serpentine's helped! it balenced him up, still, he did his little legs everywhere impression. but now, he is starting to get his correct footing! in time it should improve

Stephen
 
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