Help on achieving straightness in canter?

only_me

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I have a real problem in trying to sort this - we think part of our showjumping, um, "issues", is that we are never truely straight in right canter. Left canter is much straighter.

Today when I was schooling him we worked on lateral work in trot (shoulder in to baby half pass) and in canter it is quite noticeable if I come across center line his quarters are in on the right so he appears curled around my inside leg.

I have tried two methods of correcting this; one is where i hold my inside leg further back (I don't need to use it, just hold it against his side) and put outside leg on to keep him on the line and hold outside rein and lighten inside - he finds this quite difficult and his canter comes more "up" therefore I think this is the right way to do it?
The problem I am having is that sometimes he either starts to leg yield left or he changes lead - how can I prevent these from happening?

The other way I tried was pushing the shoulder in but this curled him more so wasn't right for him.

Does anyone have any tips on creating straightness? I'm aware that some of the problem is me sitting slightly collapsed in the right hip and right shoulder rolling forwards and I am in the process of trying to correct myself.

Please any help is gratefully received! Can offer some cherry lips for your trouble ;)
 
My dressage horse can be quite quarters in in canter, with him he bulges out of his neck/shoulder a bit and brings his quaters in.

With my instructor I work on coming down the long side and coming into shoulder in just before the corner, and slightly out of the corner, through both corners, then pushing forward a bit on the long side. Then when this is softer spiral the canter into a small circle, then leg yield back out and straight into shoulder fore on the circle. It really gets him straight and pushing well off both hinds (hope I explained that ok)

The other thing I do with him is quite sharply angled SI's, like more of a leg yield down the long side, to really get him off my inside leg, making sure he never loses his outside shoulder and this also gets him really straight.

The only problem I can see with having to change your position (ie one leg back etc) is it would possibly make it quite hard to maintain straightness and then ask for other things when the time comes?

I am not sure the above ramble was much help...sorry :o
 
Have you tried riding bend/counter bend through varying figures? The stretch and the straightness has to come from moving the shoulders not the quarters and I find this the best "basic" exercise. You can proceed from simple - shallow bend on a straight line - to as complicated - counter canter with counter bend on a circle - as you want. Be very precise moving the neck and the shoulders, with a quiet, gradual change of bend with a distinct straight period between and attention paid to the horse staying balanced underneath you.

Counter canter on its own is also very helpful. Cantering squares (great for the jumping, too) is always useful, keeping then shoulders very straight, not letting the horse fall in.

For your own straightness, hands down the best exercise I've seen is to turn your head and look over your outside shoulder - actually point your chin along your shoulders, not just look with your eyes. It is very simple but very interesting to do!
 
With my instructor I work on coming down the long side and coming into shoulder in just before the corner, and slightly out of the corner, through both corners, then pushing forward a bit on the long side. Then when this is softer spiral the canter into a small circle, then leg yield back out and straight into shoulder fore on the circle. It really gets him straight and pushing well off both hinds (hope I explained that ok)

The other thing I do with him is quite sharply angled SI's, like more of a leg yield down the long side, to really get him off my inside leg, making sure he never loses his outside shoulder and this also gets him really straight.

The only problem I can see with having to change your position (ie one leg back etc) is it would possibly make it quite hard to maintain straightness and then ask for other things when the time comes?

I am not sure the above ramble was much help...sorry :o

Thank you for your tips :) Canter shoulder in is still a work in progress, I wouldn't be confident in using that to work into other movements but once we get that established it sounds as a great exercise!
I'm hoping in that I can gradually reduce the amount i bring my leg back once he stays straight in self carriage :)
Canter leg yield spirals sound good (and hard!) so will give them a go! Have been told that there is a simple change on center line in one of the tests so am aiming to get an 8 in that ;)

Have you tried riding bend/counter bend through varying figures? The stretch and the straightness has to come from moving the shoulders not the quarters and I find this the best "basic" exercise. You can proceed from simple - shallow bend on a straight line - to as complicated - counter canter with counter bend on a circle - as you want. Be very precise moving the neck and the shoulders, with a quiet, gradual change of bend with a distinct straight period between and attention paid to the horse staying balanced underneath you.

Counter canter on its own is also very helpful. Cantering squares (great for the jumping, too) is always useful, keeping then shoulders very straight, not letting the horse fall in.

For your own straightness, hands down the best exercise I've seen is to turn your head and look over your outside shoulder - actually point your chin along your shoulders, not just look with your eyes. It is very simple but very interesting to do!

When you say the straightness has to come from the shoulders, does that mean I need to correct the shoulders (so would be riding shoulder fore to a quarters in?) or only when moving in counter bends? will try a 2 loop serpentine for a counter bend first maybe.
I forgot about cantering squares, thank you! will set up some cones as markers :)
Sounds like a good exercise of looking over shoulder! :)
thank you!
 
My 5 year old majourly brings his quarters in on the left rein! It's so frustrating!
I have worked on the trot as have found its a weakness on the rein as a whole. Try trotting shoulder in down the longside and then transition to walk in shoulder in to get them sitting correctly on their hindquarters. Row finds this really difficult!
In canter, shoulder fore down longside to E/ B marker and then transition to trot and trot a 10m circle and as you hit the track again, transition back to canter shoulder fore. This really helped Rowan!
Also loads and loads of counter canter- can you do 20m circle/ oval in counter canter and ask them to balance to a slower canter and bring bend of neck/ body straighter while still in counter canter.
 
Riding squares can help straighten a horse. Make sure you're really disciplined and ride each corner as a right angle, using your outside rein to move the shoulder over, then ride straight for two - three strides before doing another true right angle. Sounds easy but to ride properly it's not but is very beneficial.
 
Have you tried riding bend/counter bend through varying figures? The stretch and the straightness has to come from moving the shoulders not the quarters and I find this the best "basic" exercise. You can proceed from simple - shallow bend on a straight line - to as complicated - counter canter with counter bend on a circle - as you want. Be very precise moving the neck and the shoulders, with a quiet, gradual change of bend with a distinct straight period between and attention paid to the horse staying balanced underneath you.

Counter canter on its own is also very helpful. Cantering squares (great for the jumping, too) is always useful, keeping then shoulders very straight, not letting the horse fall in.

For your own straightness, hands down the best exercise I've seen is to turn your head and look over your outside shoulder - actually point your chin along your shoulders, not just look with your eyes. It is very simple but very interesting to do!

Forgot about using counter bend and squares, but this is good advice too!

I find just cantering a 20m circle in counter bend really gets the shoulder lifting, but I think he might fall over if I tried counter canter with counter bend ;)


Can understand with regard to not using canter shoulder in, when my little mare was working I used to do canter into trot SI to canter to trot SI, this might help without needing canter SI?
 
Counter flexion and bits of counter canter if they're up to it. ALso a good exercise I use with mine is canter onto the 3/4 line, shallow leg yield as you move up and across the school, then straighten before the end of the school and carry on onto the track and into the corner...
 
I was always taught to try to control the shoulders not the quarters too, so I would do shoulder fore on pretty much every straight line. The squares are great as well as they give you a feel for picking up the shoulders and brining them round.
 
My older horse was an expert at this!

In brief, and echoing the good advice above, lots of canter squares;

counter flexion;

counter canter - once strong enough, lots of, only going back onto true canter when you have him through and straight - then back into counter etc;

canter should always be ridden in a slight shoulder fore position; shoulder in in canter on a circle;

renvers - particularly on a circle - on a circle you could go shoulder-in - renvers - shoulder-in etc; should also help him accept the leg so no extra changes!

transitions trot-canter-trot while in shoulder fore / shoulder-in.

Just some ideas! Am sure you'll get plenty more.
 
When you say the straightness has to come from the shoulders, does that mean I need to correct the shoulders (so would be riding shoulder fore to a quarters in?) or only when moving in counter bends? will try a 2 loop serpentine for a counter bend first maybe.
I forgot about cantering squares, thank you! will set up some cones as markers :)
Sounds like a good exercise of looking over shoulder! :)
thank you!

I mean you have to move the shoulders in front of the quarters, not the quarters behind the shoulders - does that make sense? (Just as a point of trivia, Western horses are trained the other way around - it's all about displacing the hip.) Combined with stretching the horse out, of course, to make it straight, not compressing it. (I think of the horse as a bendy straw.) Also, don't confuse the shoulders with the neck or the nose.

Have you ever driven a rear wheel drive sports car? That's the feeling I'm looking for, that I can put my foot on the accelerator and the front end pops up and I can move it around wherever I need it to be. Obviously this is metaphorical but it gives the ideal goal. So your straightness eventually comes from being able to put the front end of the horse *here* and curve or straighten whichever side you need to for the movement at hand.

All that said, the exercises of renvers and travers in trot are very useful to strengthen and straighten as well. They won't magically fix the canter issue but they will give you and the horse the tools to do so.

The use of quarters in in canter, though, is one of those very contentious subjects. People vehemently disagree. I, personally, do not like doing it as find it can end up exacerbating the problem and putting the horse on the outside shoulder but quite possible I do not ride well enough to use it properly!

Do be careful of coming out of "canter position" in your seat though, when you are cantering. It might get the job done in a way now but cause you problems with your changes later. (This is part of the trick of training, some things that seem a good idea at the time can bite you in the butt later on!:rolleyes:)
 
Hi TarrSteps,

I agree re travers/renvers! On a horse that brings its quarters in, in canter, I would never ride travers in canter on that rein, though that could be my dodgy riding!
 
You need to always correct the shoulders first which in turn corrects the hind end. Your horse is right handed so will always lean on the right shoulder (until you correct him) and bring quarters to the right especiallly on the right rein! Falls in on the right rein and stays to the wall feels straight on the left. To correct this on the right rein you need to place the weight on the left shoulder so you need to get quiet an exsagerated bend to the right with his neck, this will place the weight in the left shoulder and will then put the left hind into play as it will also be taking more loading weight and not be dependent on the right hind taking all the loading/carrying weight and also doing most of the pushing which would eventually cause ware and tear on this leg. this will cause his body to straighten. it will feel very bazar at the beginning but you have to make sure the bend is from the base of the neck or he will just fall out instead instead of straighten its a very fine line but works! on the other rein try not to get to much inside bend and use counter bend to change things up.
 
This will feel a bit bazaar at the beginning but will become easier to you and the horse after a while as the horse becomes straighter. This is why lateral work was used as on one rein you would use a certain movement to make the horse put weight in a different place to stretch a certain area that is stiff but you wouldn't do this on the other rein you would use a different movement as each rein is treated different as the use them self differently. Hope that makes some sense.
 
Agree with all posts advising you move the shoulder around the quarters not the other way around.

The reason for this, which I will give as could help you in lots of other work is that the hind quarters are your engine. They drive the horse. Don't disrupt that driving force by making it do something else as well or you will be making your horse lose impulsive and become imbalanced.

Agree with squares, travers and renvers. Also think about riding shoulder fore...not quite as loud as shoulder in so can be very effective when little tweaks are needed.
 
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