Help needed with canter

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perryhillbay

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Can anyone suggest some schooling tips to help sort my horse's canter out..

She is a bit of a speed demon and loves to canter, however, no matter how collected and well balanced and steady I get her in her trot before the transition, she always throws her head up in the transition for a stride or so, she then settles a little, but gets very tight in the neck. I try to put more leg on to encourage her to reach forward into a more relaxed contact but she rushes away from the leg and then ends up falling onto her forehand, I then find myself holding her mouth to try and steady her, then she gets tight in the neck and the whole thing just goes around in circles like that the whole time. The downwards transition is equally as bad, she throws her head up and rushes her trot and falls onto the forehand again and I have to really concentrate on slowing my rising and quietening her down to get the trot back nice again.

She doesn't do this on the lunge (I lunge in the pessoa at least once a weeks and she goes beautifully in it), has had her back checked, teeth done, saddle checked, and is currently under the care of the vet and being trialled on regumate so I am exploring/have explored every avenue to find a reason for this behaviour but still the problem remains.

Any help or tips would be gratefully received. I am so desperate to start doing some dressage but this canter is proving a really tough nut to crack and I don't want to get laughed out of the arena! My instructor is awesome and really helps me, but even she seems to be at a bit of a loss on this one...

Hot chocolate and oreo biscuits for anyone who has managed to get to the end of this! :)
 
Have you got a video?

couple of suggestions anyway:
try walk to canter transitions instead of trot to canter; and keep turning. Never take her on with both hands, it will encourage stiffness in the neck, lateral flexions are the way forward ;)
 
Perry,

I had the exact same problem with my boy, he used to rush into the canter and then either pick up on the wrong leg, head in the air or end up doing trot at 100mph.

I'd try the walk to canter transitions like martlin suggested, try giving a bit of rein as you go into canter? It took me ages to do it but giving him his head for the first stride seemed to help as he didn't get stupid and start pulling - but that isn't where my main problem was.

Slowing down though, my instructors just taught it to me - and it's brace your back. sit up and brace it. the sudden change in weight position and everything else is like applying the handbrake in your car, he drops straight back into trot and stays rather collected for me too. It's quite hard to explain but i'm only 5'4 and I manage to control my idiotic 17.2 tb x with my body weight... just a suggestion, takes some getting used to though :(
 
martlin said:
Have you got a video?

couple of suggestions anyway:
try walk to canter transitions instead of trot to canter; and keep turning. Never take her on with both hands, it will encourage stiffness in the neck, lateral flexions are the way forward ;)
Click to expand...

^^^^^^^^^^^ As martlin says.
 
Another thought, although without seeing you ride, it's all guesswork...

The reaction to transition you describe, with the head going up and the horse shooting off is quite often a result from sitting 'too deep'; what I mean is, sit straight up and light, push forward not downwards. As you anticipate trouble in the transition, you make an extra effort to sit deep and tall, ramming your tense body downwards into the horse's back - the horse hollows and shoots forward.
 
Had this with my pony and it was that I was holding 'too tight'. He needed that stretch for the transition and because he couldn't get that little bit of stretch he was exaggerating pulling for it. I worked on getting his trot right with minimal contact so there was no restriction when it came to canter transition. But found it hard at compertitions because holding a little too tight and it popped up again.
Same with downwards transition it was slowing with my seat and a quickly released half halt and think heavy. Although until I did this alot of instructors told me to exaggerate sitting back into canter incase he was having to put his head up to balance me into canter to counteract my leaning forward.
And downwards transition lots of deep sitting work without stirrups so its not so bumpy. My pony is half hackney so as he came down from canter his trot was 'expressive' which bounced me around which made his head come up.
It did take me about 3 years to get him in a consistant outline during transitions but when I nailed it my dressage marks went up noticably.
It came back when I asked for extended trot later on as I was holding on again but more riding with the seat less with the hands worked again.
NB when I say holding too tight with my pony I literally mean at all he has a really light mouth so what I thought was light contact was heavy to him this really caught me out.
Good luck :)
 
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