Hopping at canter

[Claire_W]

I have a young horse who is 3 years old. We have been doing a little work under saddle. Recently we have started to work on cantering a few strides. I lunge him at the canter working on transitions so he know what to do when I ask, and he does it perfectly on the lunge line with a saddle on his back. Then I get on him and using the same que and ask him to canter and all he does is hop. Do you all think his tack is not comfortable if he’s in pain or just being a silly young horse?

 

[TheMule]

3 is very young to canter under saddle in an arena. Best to leave it for a while and then try when he's stronger through the rest of his work- preferably out hacking in straight lines to establish it.
Of course your should also have a saddle check and an experienced eye to look over him to make sure they don’t think it's physical, but it is quite normal for a young horse to find cantering under saddle hard.

 

[LEC]

I don't think any of my 3yos have been cantered under saddle. They were just too big and weak. The only time I asked them for canter was loose schooling over jumps and even then they hardly did much. I was pretty happy if they behaved, understood lunging in walk and trot, hacked and walked and trotted in the arena on a long rein as asked. Its one of the reasons I always left them until September to give them as long as possible before breaking and then they would do 6-8 weeks max. I would tend to pick them back up at 4 in April and see what we had and what they could physically do.

 

[Littlebear]

As others mention forget doing it in the school and see if you can let it develop out hacking on a long straight run for a bit, is the horse just 3 or about to turn 4

 

[Claire_W]

3 is very young to canter under saddle in an arena. Best to leave it for a while and then try when he's stronger through the rest of his work- preferably out hacking in straight lines to establish it.
Of course your should also have a saddle check and an experienced eye to look over him to make sure they don’t think it's physical, but it is quite normal for a young horse to find cantering under saddle hard.

Ok thank you. The reason we did start young is we do short work session and I am a very light rider 90lbs so it is not a lot of weight on his back.