Exercises for a horse that is tense after canter?

[wellsat]

Can anyone recommend exercises for a horse that is gets overexcited by canter?

G is lovely and relaxed to school, lovely to canter but once you've had a canter its very, very hard to get him to relax back into a nice trot. He's all excited and anticipates another canter.

Tonight's strategy was to do one very short canter and then a good 20 mins of trot work before we had another one but he still didn't give in.

Any recommendations gratefully received, I really want to take him BE this season but its not going to happen if we can't relax in trot.

 

[mystiandsunny]

What works for me with my 5yo, is to only ever canter from a calm, relaxed trot - so after the first canter she's often excited and rushy, but I won't let her canter again until she relaxes - once she has, and I'm happy, we canter again, so she sees her reward for relaxing again as having more fun. After the first go or two she's like 'ok, I'm relaxing' as she knows it's her best option. Eventually as we build up the duration of the canter work, it won't be exciting any more, it'll be work.

 

[Sal_E]

What happens if you go straight back to walk & work in walk until settled? But don't just walk round (will be anticipating upwards transition), but WORK in walk - lots of shapes, lateral work, halt transitions etc. So horse has to focus on the work.

Also, when in trot are you concentrating on you? I.e. are you trying to trot slowly & calmly rather than matching the rushing?

 

[wellsat]

What happens if you go straight back to walk & work in walk until settled? But don't just walk round (will be anticipating upwards transition), but WORK in walk - lots of shapes, lateral work, halt transitions etc. So horse has to focus on the work.

Also, when in trot are you concentrating on you? I.e. are you trying to trot slowly & calmly rather than matching the rushing?

Thanks, I do try to slow him with my rises and hold him all together but its not easy. I find I'm half halting about every third stride, he comes back fine but I don't want to be saying "Oi" every three strides, I want him to just relax into it.

I've not tried WORKING him in walk after a canter, we occassionally have a mooch to stretch off but we tend to stay in trot. Will try a good long session of walk and see if that makes a difference.

 

[kirstyhen]

I Ride a horse like this. I find that after the first canter if we go back to walk and do loads of lateral work to get him accepting my leg without shooting forwards, he'll relax, eventually Then I mix up doing canter transitions out of walk and trot, so he doesn't assume trot/walk will lead to canter and keep adding the odd lateral movement in. It tends to stop him anticipating and get him listening.