Kallibear
Well-Known Member
Some horses have a naturally good canter. Others don't. Piper is sadly one of the latter.
He's not had a huge amount of schooling due to facilities but has recently moved to a yard with an indoor school and started doing a lot more. His walk trot work has come on leaps and bounds and he starting to maintain a balanced outline, put some power in and be (almost
) forward thinking and sharp. Canter is still quite frankly crap tho 
He has done a fair amount of cantering out hacking and hunting but in the school it is SOOOOO downhill and has utterly no motivation. He's a bit of a lazy sod anyways and needs constantly reminded to put some effort into trot and not slow to a crawl in walk. He's the same under saddle and, on the lunge and even inhand. The canter is beyond a joke though. He is so on the forehand if feels like you're going downhill. Put your leg on and he just curls deeper if you have a contact, or stretches down even more when you don't. Use a stick and he hitches his bum in the air in protest and gets even MORE downhill. His canter goes nowhere and if you try to lift his front end it gets even shorter than breaks.
The only time he proves he can actually canter is when he's enthusiastic about something (rare. Cantering towards home does the trick and he has an amazing, easy uphill flowing canter) or someone's on the ground chasing him with a lunge whip
The canter transition is pretty good. He'll keep the bum tucked under and the power from trot for 2 strides than just collapse on the forehand and need forced. He hates it, I hate it and we .both get frustrated.
Id say the biggest issue is he's naturally lazy and puts as little effort in as he thinks I'll allow. Because he finds it difficult he doesn't want to do it and puts even less effort in.
Im rather at a lost with ways of improving it. We've currently not bothered cantering for the last week or two as it ruins an otherwise good schooling session.
Suggestions please?
He's not had a huge amount of schooling due to facilities but has recently moved to a yard with an indoor school and started doing a lot more. His walk trot work has come on leaps and bounds and he starting to maintain a balanced outline, put some power in and be (almost
) forward thinking and sharp. Canter is still quite frankly crap tho He has done a fair amount of cantering out hacking and hunting but in the school it is SOOOOO downhill and has utterly no motivation. He's a bit of a lazy sod anyways and needs constantly reminded to put some effort into trot and not slow to a crawl in walk. He's the same under saddle and, on the lunge and even inhand. The canter is beyond a joke though. He is so on the forehand if feels like you're going downhill. Put your leg on and he just curls deeper if you have a contact, or stretches down even more when you don't. Use a stick and he hitches his bum in the air in protest and gets even MORE downhill. His canter goes nowhere and if you try to lift his front end it gets even shorter than breaks.
The only time he proves he can actually canter is when he's enthusiastic about something (rare. Cantering towards home does the trick and he has an amazing, easy uphill flowing canter) or someone's on the ground chasing him with a lunge whip
The canter transition is pretty good. He'll keep the bum tucked under and the power from trot for 2 strides than just collapse on the forehand and need forced. He hates it, I hate it and we .both get frustrated.
Id say the biggest issue is he's naturally lazy and puts as little effort in as he thinks I'll allow. Because he finds it difficult he doesn't want to do it and puts even less effort in.
Im rather at a lost with ways of improving it. We've currently not bothered cantering for the last week or two as it ruins an otherwise good schooling session.
Suggestions please?
