Hardest Gait Re Balance and Control?

[Mochi]

Hello all, I was thinking about this this evening after a rather bumpy hack out, so I'm curious to see what you think.

My question is this, what is the hardest gait to be balanced and to have control for both horse and rider?

My mare is the speedy sort, not hot or anything, just fast, but I'm finding it hard to keep her paces at a normal speed and rhythmic. On upward transitions she's fantastic, but downward its difficult. Canter to trot is okay, but we will often spend several circles getting the trot normal before even thinking about walk, and when we try for walk its often a few circles more. So far after three or four lessons its improved dramatically, so this evening went for a short hack out and as I was feeling rather confident I asked for a short trot up the road. Not a good idea. It was full speed ahead in turbo trot with no heed to my aids until I could turn her and she stood, by which point she had excited herself into a frenzy and had a complete meltdown at a truck trying to pass. Its discouraged me just a little because I thought we were getting past this. I did tense up after she took off and I know she felt that, but when I asked I was relaxed and didn't tense until she had already started racing.

In the arena, canter is easy for her, she again likes to speed but she's happy and relaxed to go normally, so I'm not concerned about a balance issue there. On the one time we had a successful canter on a hack, it was in a field and she was super quiet. However on that occasion I had asked for trot and she skipped it out almost entirely, so it makes me think trot is hard for her.

Both of us have been either off work or off riding most of this year, she's lost her muscle and I've struggled for a few years with weight issues, which means that I'm underweight and I have no muscles to hold myself properly. She's a rather large warmblood by comparison. I know, I'm crazy.

On the lunge I noticed she runs out in trot, like she can't hold herself and so speeds up. In saddle I personally have a really hard time keeping my balance once she goes turbo trot on me, I'm bouncing, leaning back, legs everywhere, trying to stop, its a hot mess (at least thats what it seems to me, my trainer doesn't make a huge deal about it so perhaps its not so bad).

On a slightly different note, it occured to me today that she is 8% French Trotter, which is a trot racing breed very common around here. It never fazed me as the percentage is so small, but could it possibly be a contributor to her behaviour? Today's race felt very elongated and dramatic lol.

I feel like this is mostly a balance issue due to rusty partners, but I wonder if its common to have issues in trot over another gait? I heard somewhere that canter is often the most difficult so it got me thinking. Would love to hear your thoughts! Thanks

 

[Mule]

My horse is on a break at the moment so I'm riding school horses. My own horse half halts from the seat but the riding school horses respond to half halts from leg and hand which I'm not used to using, so our canter to trot transitions are a bit unbalanced. I need time to practice on their horses at my own pace so I can crack it. The problem is, in the group lesson I can't really wander off and do my own thing. I suppose I should really because there's no point going and not learning what I need to.

 

[Red-1]

Sounds like she needs a re-school.

I would ban any turbo paces. They are now a thing of the past.

That might mean starting with working on the halt. Halt to mount and stay halted. halt to a few steps of walk, then halt again. Don't progress until you have a halt.

Then work on the walk. With the above exercise you did a few steps of walk, so start to increase the walk steps, not allowing them to get faster. 3 steps then halt. 5 steps then halt. 7 steps then halt, until you have a walk.

Then play with adjusting the walk. So think of a walk as a 1-5, 1 being crawling along and 5 being a turbo walk. Practice going between the walk gears at your will. Any issues, return to halt.

Then trot. Initially excite the walk until she strides into trot, thank her and walk again. Then 3 steps of trot. Once that is good and relaxed, not pricing etc, then 5 steps of trot. Then 7, increasing only once the set number of trot steps is not running. Then once you have a decent amount of trot, start with almost walk then trot on again. Essentially a half halt. Then go large, almost walk for balance frequently. If the almost walk is not accurate, relaxed and responsive, return to walk transitions.

Only look at canter once you have taught her to re-balance at trot, also do 1-5 gears in trot, also be able to change rein, change bend on the same rein.

I have successfully re-schooled several panic stricken horses in this way. Some are quick, some have taken months to learn to work forward into the soft contact. All succeeded unless they had a pain issue later identified.

 

[Pearlsasinger]

Sounds like she needs a re-school.

I would ban any turbo paces. They are now a thing of the past.

That might mean starting with working on the halt. Halt to mount and stay halted. halt to a few steps of walk, then halt again. Don't progress until you have a halt.

Then work on the walk. With the above exercise you did a few steps of walk, so start to increase the walk steps, not allowing them to get faster. 3 steps then halt. 5 steps then halt. 7 steps then halt, until you have a walk.

Then play with adjusting the walk. So think of a walk as a 1-5, 1 being crawling along and 5 being a turbo walk. Practice going between the walk gears at your will. Any issues, return to halt.

Then trot. Initially excite the walk until she strides into trot, thank her and walk again. Then 3 steps of trot. Once that is good and relaxed, not pricing etc, then 5 steps of trot. Then 7, increasing only once the set number of trot steps is not running. Then once you have a decent amount of trot, start with almost walk then trot on again. Essentially a half halt. Then go large, almost walk for balance frequently. If the almost walk is not accurate, relaxed and responsive, return to walk transitions.

Only look at canter once you have taught her to re-balance at trot, also do 1-5 gears in trot, also be able to change rein, change bend on the same rein.

I have successfully re-schooled several panic stricken horses in this way. Some are quick, some have taken months to learn to work forward into the soft contact. All succeeded unless they had a pain issue later identified.

An excellent description,. Can I also advise using seat aids rather than hands/bit to slow the paces?

 

[JFTDWS]

I'd say this is likely to be a physical issue, or a training one, rather than the inevitable consequence of 8% of her genetic inheritance. Red's covered the re-schooling comprehensively.

In answer to the thread title, I think walk is the hardest gait for balance for most riders to get to grips with. People tend to leave the horse to its own devices too much and fail to develop sufficient influence over the gait, just plodding along / being knobbed off with, or over-interfere and cling on to the face / fiddle so the horse can't use itself correctly. I think people overlook walk because it's "easy".

And for the horse it depends on conformation, physical condition and training - I have two of the same breed and similar types (well, people often can't tell them apart!) and one defaults to canter, the other to trot.

 

[Goldenstar]

Walk is the pace that it’s hardest to influence and it takes a lot of skill to work on the walk in training .
I too would completely ban turbo paces as well

 

[Mochi]

Sounds like she needs a re-school.

I would ban any turbo paces. They are now a thing of the past.

That might mean starting with working on the halt. Halt to mount and stay halted. halt to a few steps of walk, then halt again. Don't progress until you have a halt.

Then work on the walk. With the above exercise you did a few steps of walk, so start to increase the walk steps, not allowing them to get faster. 3 steps then halt. 5 steps then halt. 7 steps then halt, until you have a walk.

Then play with adjusting the walk. So think of a walk as a 1-5, 1 being crawling along and 5 being a turbo walk. Practice going between the walk gears at your will. Any issues, return to halt.

Then trot. Initially excite the walk until she strides into trot, thank her and walk again. Then 3 steps of trot. Once that is good and relaxed, not pricing etc, then 5 steps of trot. Then 7, increasing only once the set number of trot steps is not running. Then once you have a decent amount of trot, start with almost walk then trot on again. Essentially a half halt. Then go large, almost walk for balance frequently. If the almost walk is not accurate, relaxed and responsive, return to walk transitions.

Only look at canter once you have taught her to re-balance at trot, also do 1-5 gears in trot, also be able to change rein, change bend on the same rein.

I have successfully re-schooled several panic stricken horses in this way. Some are quick, some have taken months to learn to work forward into the soft contact. All succeeded unless they had a pain issue later identified.

Thank you so much for this in depth explanation! I went out yesterday to try this out, even though we don't have an arena I took her out to the old veg patch thats big enough for walking. Unfortunately it wasn't her day, she was sluggish and unresponsive to my aids, although I got some lovely halts out of her etc..I stopped after about 30 minutes. Of course she perked up after I got off. I'm going to hopefully have a lesson this week so I'll try this in warm up!

 

[Mochi]

I'd say this is likely to be a physical issue, or a training one, rather than the inevitable consequence of 8% of her genetic inheritance. Red's covered the re-schooling comprehensively.

In answer to the thread title, I think walk is the hardest gait for balance for most riders to get to grips with. People tend to leave the horse to its own devices too much and fail to develop sufficient influence over the gait, just plodding along / being knobbed off with, or over-interfere and cling on to the face / fiddle so the horse can't use itself correctly. I think people overlook walk because it's "easy".

And for the horse it depends on conformation, physical condition and training - I have two of the same breed and similar types (well, people often can't tell them apart!) and one defaults to canter, the other to trot.

Walk is the pace that it’s hardest to influence and it takes a lot of skill to work on the walk in training .
I too would completely ban turbo paces as well

Interesting! I wasn't expecting that I have to say lol, which probably means I overlook it way too much myself. I think Penny's default is definitely canter, I was told that as she is a Selle Francais they tend to have a great canter but breeders don't aren't particular about trot.

 

[Leo Walker]

I'd say this is likely to be a physical issue, or a training one, rather than the inevitable consequence of 8% of her genetic inheritance. Red's covered the re-schooling comprehensively.

In answer to the thread title, I think walk is the hardest gait for balance for most riders to get to grips with. People tend to leave the horse to its own devices too much and fail to develop sufficient influence over the gait, just plodding along / being knobbed off with, or over-interfere and cling on to the face / fiddle so the horse can't use itself correctly. I think people overlook walk because it's "easy".

And for the horse it depends on conformation, physical condition and training - I have two of the same breed and similar types (well, people often can't tell them apart!) and one defaults to canter, the other to trot.

Yup this. I've had a real telling off about letting mine slop along in the walk. Its so easily done.