Canter help

[novicegirl]

Hey, my name is Lottie and I have just started riding! (Excuse my grammar as I am only young!) I need some help with my canter. I have been riding on and off for 3 years. I have now begun to canter again. I need some help because I am having problems with pony's cutting corners! I would like some help on how to stop this as I would love to be able to canter in a straight line!

 

[smja]

What does your instructor tell you to do?

 

[novicegirl]

What does your instructor tell you to do?

She tells me to keep my outside leg on to push my pony into the corners and keep my rein on to get him around, but my pony is rather strong and I am fairly small!

 

[Ponymad1369]

I'm not sure if it only helped on the horse I used to ride that cut corners but I used to apply pressure on the horse with my whip on its inside shoulder to push it out. I didn't hit it or put so much pressure that it hurt on the horse. I just did what my inside leg was doing basically. Also make sure you've still got pressure on your outside rein. As many people forget that and only use their inside rein

 

[EQUIDAE]

She tells me to keep my outside leg on to push my pony into the corners and keep my rein on to get him around, but my pony is rather strong and I am fairly small!

You need to be using your inside leg to push the horse out into the corners, and using the outside rein to support. But don't pull on the outside rein our you will just end up with a banana horse.

Practice keeping into the corners at walk and then trot - you need to establish it slower before you have any hope of controlling the horse in canter.

Think of controlling the shoulder rather than the head for the direction of movement.