squidwid
New User
Hi all. finally bought my first horse last month (im 39 now!) and need some advice! he is a 17.2 tb ex point to pointer, apparantly has done some hurdling. he was in the same family from foal to age 12, it seems he went unsound so has been sold on and now with me aged 13. I have only been walking him/trotting due to confidence issues, also wanted to take it slow to get used to him and vice versa. went out today on a hack, and of course was expected to canter, which to be honest i wanted to do just to get it out of the way, as i ave owned him 5 weeks now. anyway, he did what i thought he would do, which is to break into a semi gallop, head down with bit between his teeth, i spent the whole time trying to slow him down, to not much avail. i am 6ft and 14 stone and had a real job to hold him. he is fine in every other respect, good on roads, quite a calm boy, trots nicely etc. anyway, he is in a snaffle and my gut reaction was to go out and buy a stronger bit (dutch gag, eek? and martingale) i havent put this on him yet as reading on the internet it seems he just needs retraining. question (finally!) is how? how long should i be doing transistions from walk to trot, how can i get him to have a collected canter, should i use the new bit? do you know of any good resources on line? havent been able to find much! tx, vanessa