Canter striding

[Rachael42]

Hi, I’ve got a horse that will pop a jump beautifully from trot but from a canter he can’t seem to get his strides right and he either runs out or stops. I am going to take him back to pole work but I’m looking for ideas for how to help him with this, he could do trotting poles no problem all day so ideally canter work as this is his weak spot. Thanks!

 

[EngageDressage]

Can he canter over poles on the ground ok? Maybe set out poles in the same places you’d put jumps around the arena and just canter over them on the floor, then raise one end (just by a few inches, cavaletti height), then once he’s ok with that, raise the other end, then build up to cross poles?

 

[Kizzy2004]

Grid work will help him find his striding and build his confidence. Start with poles on the ground then build up to small fences one fence at a time. You could then set it up with trot poles to the first fence then for the 2nd a canter pole to help him know where to take off from and build it from there. There are loads a great exercises online.

 

[Red-1]

If he lands in canter, I would put a trot pole to a X pole up (usually around 9 ft) and have a play with where he is comfortable to have a pole on landing. Start with 10 1/2 ft as a safe start, and ask a helper to either close or open it until he can pop the X pole and canter over the pole.

When you have found the sweet spot, then have the helper add another where he has his next stride. Continue adding poles, where he is comfortable, until there are 5 poles.

The momentum will help him to keep the canter over the poles. Once he can do this where he is comfortable, then you can play with the distance, making it bigger or smaller and the horse will learn to adjust his canter to fit the pole pattern rather than the pole pattern being designed to fit him.

Once he is adjustable, then add a fence at the end, so he feels good.

Once he is confident to adjust his stride to fit the poles (after several sessions, not just all the steps in one session), then remove the first jump and approach in canter, but come back to just 3 poles. 3 poles means he has more wriggle room!

Once he can canter round to 3 poles and adjust himself, then go back to 5, then play with shorter or longer, then add a fence.

Voila!

 

[18hhOlls&Me]

Can he canter over poles on the ground ok? Maybe set out poles in the same places you’d put jumps around the arena and just canter over them on the floor, then raise one end (just by a few inches, cavaletti height), then once he’s ok with that, raise the other end, then build up to cross poles?

Maybe work on your cantering shortening and lengthening the strides so you know you can establish a good collected SJ canter for the exercises suggested above too, which sound very useful