Consistent speed

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claribella

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Can anyone give me any tips on how to get my girl to stay at a consistent speed while we are schooling. We do lots of change of reins and all the lingo to get her listening but onc she gets excited then she tends to rush nd then i have to bring her back again. She was rushingthe corners anticipating a canter I think so I stopped cantering for a while because she would just quicken up aft a canter. I dont always canter the corners either. I find it very difficult stop her rushing the canter as well. Any tips and advice would be much appreciated.
 
Half-halts, every time she starts to rush, bring her back, if necessary change down a pace. Transitions, trotting poles, changes of rein, changes of pace within the gait are all good exercises to get her listening to you. Make sure that you are accurate when you are performing a movement, eg, if you decide to trot at E, make sure that you really are at E, not just after or just before.
Ask for consistency when you are hacking as well as when in the school.
 
Half halts. To ride the corners, imagine you want to leg yield round it, shorten the stride slightly approaching it & ride right into it. If she's a rusher, lots of circles, figure of 8s, serpentines & loops help. Avoid going large or trotting long straight lines such as across the diagonal until she is more consistent. Much harder to rush on a 10m circle than it is down the long side. And if she does speed up when you go straight immediately circle before continuing. Lots of variation helps too so she isn't predicting when she is going to canter or rush off. Leg yielding in from a 20m circle then back out also helps. No reason to avoid canter, it doesn't have to be a mad rush round the outside track, you can include it just as half a circle.
 
Thanks guys! I took some of what you said into the school this morning and we had a much better time. I usually find that she's fine until we have had our first canter and even the first she skips the corners but today was much different. Our first canter was a twenty metre circle and she did it absolutely perfect. I then spent a little while getting her sane again and we did another. We did have one out of control large canter but that was because I wasn't really sure what I was going to do so gave her mied signals. Thanks again we will continue on our journey and hopefully continue to improve.
 
Well done, glad it went better for you. I prefer changing rushing to impulsion any day over one that would rather be asleep in the field!
 
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