Help needed with canter please

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Hey all, my current horse (had for a year now) came over from Ireland having done literally nothing other than hunt. He has come on a treat and for a boy who had never done even a spot of schooling now has great walk and trot work... then comes canter ... oh help. :eek:

He is as strong as an Ox and clearly has never had to canter in much other than a straight line (however weirdly he is pretty good at a jump off :rolleyes:) but tryng to canter round the school, either going large or in a 20m circle is awful, he falls in like a motor bike, gets faster and faster, I think he is panicking because he knows its not right :( I have been trying to use my inside leg to push him up and over and opening up my outside hand to give him space to move into but he just gets heavier and heavier and heavier on my inside hand and leg.

I hope this makes some kind of sense, any help would be great. Thanks!!!
 
My mare was exactly like this when I got her - luckily it was in the summer so I could practice circles in a field without her panicing too much. However when it came to winter we had a tiny school and she was terrible so I placed cones in each corner off the school very close to the inside of the school to start with and gradually moved them further out, I was only 15 at the time so had no genious schooling solutions but this actually stopped her panicing for some reason - think she got used to the cones and so didn't realise they were getting further in and then once she was going round the outside happily I could work on he balance etc. Hope the helps a little! Lol.
 
Have you tried just cantering for a short distance in the school, e.g. just the long side? If he is unbalanced he will struggle round the corners and on a 20m circle, I spend time achieving a good trot-canter transition, a couple of nice strides in canter and then quietly back to trot again, and then build it up gradually from that. The transistions will help with the balance and engagement also.
 
Loads of transitions will work a treat. Lots of trot to halt/halt to trot etc, will get him off your leg. Make sure you half halt too :D
Keep it short and fun though otherwise he'll get bored out of his skull :p
I never school for more than half and hour. 20 mins if they have worked really well, then a little hack up the road and back (if he;s fit)

Have fun :) I love schooling :D
 
Do plenty of trot-canter-trot transitions. And maybe try free schooling and lungeing in canter? Just for a small amount of time and then build it up. Ditto about starting cantering for just the long side and then bringing him back though! Maybe also canter poles could help sort himself out? xxx
 
Thanks all, he has become very good at walk canter transitions but its after a couple of strides when it all goes worng. I will try ALL of the above suggestions! Thanks a lot :)
 
My Mare does this. It's because they are out of balance and they need their inside leg to come up quickly to catch them so to speak, so they don't fall over. It's almost like if we ran the smallest tiniest circle, our inside leg has to come in pretty quick to stop of falling over into the inside, so he is going faster and faster not because of speed, but his leg has to quickly come beneath him to catch him which of course means he goes faster and faster to balance.

I suppose lunge work would be good, especially with two reins allow him to balance a bit more minus the rider.

And when you canter him what about trying to canter for a tiny bit and transition back to trot - and then canter again and so on so forth, because he really starts to build up speed. Easier to make him try and hold himself for shorter periods, so the trot is effectively a little rest to gather himself up again and then off you go back into canter and start building his strength up, plus the actual transitions will be hard work for the back legs, so that's all building up work.

Goodluck.x
 
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