Help with horses canter

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diamantejumper

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Are there any schooling exercises that can help achieve/work towards a more balanced and relaxed canter? I have a horse who can be speedy and rush the canter. Every now and again we get a couple of lovely strides of canter, but what can I do to make the canter become more consistent?

Thank you
 
And if you can't actually afford a good instructor at the moment, or there isn't one near you, you could try some other things :)

How good is the trot? Sometimes of you spend some time getting the trot really forward (in front of you, not quick) and balanced the canter will also improve.

Try either smaller or bigger circles. If he's just too enthusiastic, smaller circles can calm them down. If he's just too unbalanced, bigger circles may help.

With some horses, stopping the canter as soon as they get unbalanced works very well. That often works even better if you take canter from a walk, not trot.

With some horses, they get better balance in canter if you turn their head slightly to the outside and concentrate on keeping the shoulder in front of you, not where the head is.

That's what I can think of for now, hope it helps :)
 
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Lots of short bits of canter- don't allow it to go on and on, because it usually means a horse with an unbalanced pace may begin to ball on or start to rush. You can then build on the bits of balanced canter you get as it starts to develop.

Walk to canter and canter to walk can sometimes help with the 'skip' a bit more. Ensuring that both your walk and trot are forward and balanced, and that the horse is infront of you and working through himself also helps. Don't chase for the canter when asked (which can cause the intial unbalanced and then makes it hard to recover), and try not to 'hold' it when you get those few balanced strides. Sometimes we try so hard to keep it, that we try and force it to stay (I say this because I use to do it!), so I have tried counting, reciting the alphabet, one hand on the back of the cantle etc to get me to breath and relax and let the canter naturally balance and work through.

Also, one thing I have learnt that helps get the swing and balance is rising canter- it sounds mad, and I am sure not everyone will use it, but it really has helped me get the swing and balance on a horse that use to have a long and sloppy canter that was often rushed.

To add- lateral movements in other paces, ground work, keeping it short and sweet will also help to make your horse more leg and hand obedient, which should in turn help with 'tweaking' things a bit!
 
Try walking in squares not circles for a few minutes on each rein to get the inside leg coming right under, think almost straight line and turn on the forehand but this is tiring for the horse, so allow to stretch between change of rein. Head up in to trot and do some flexing to the outside for a stride or 2 then back to the inside, loads of transitions within and between trot and walk, some shoulder in and as others have said walk to canter transitions and id do balanced half 20m circles then back to trot, establish the balance in trot and half 20m across the school again, whenever he bowls on in canter go on to a 15m circle to re balance or come back to trot, re establish balance trot and ask for canter again.
I have an 18 hand horse and im 5ft4 i need to have him well up between leg and hand with good shoulder control to keep my canter and these exercises worked for us
 
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I've observed jumping distances is great for the canter! Even just putting two poles on the floor, 6 strides away from each other, helps a lot. Try making the distance 6 strides first, then riding forward and making it 5, then bringing the horse back and making it 7, etc. :)
 
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