I have a typical chestnut...

[Redlet the Nedlet x]

I have a young(ish) horse who I've been slowly bringing on whilst learning myself, and we've hit a bit of a.... well, barrier. He seems to be having difficulty with walk to canter transitions.

All his other transitions are fine, i.e. all progressive transitions and halt to trot, rein back to trot, trot to halt etc. I've tried everything I can think of but any tips would be very much appreciated. Every time I ask for it I make sure all my aids are correct but the more I ask the more he gets wound up, but he just won't do it when I ask him the first few times. If I ask him with back-up from a stick he tries to get me off and gets a strop on and we aren't getting anywhere. He can do them quite happily when XC schooling but other than that (even on hacks when I keep him back when the others are going off in an attempt to get a transition) he just can't seem to concentrate hard enough to do it. Please help!!

 

[TheBayMonkey]

Really winding him up and getting him bouncing off the leg helped mine, once he got the idea I would use more subtle aids until all I have to do now is move my outside leg back. Lots of fuss once he gets it right even if its just a few steps, and make sure you're not tipping forward compromising his balance. If he finds it easy in XC then start there and work more and more towards the arena eg: XC, hacking through fields, jumping in the arena/field and then arena by itself, hopefully he'll get the idea that its not only xc you do it. Hope I helped

 

[LEC]

Use your voice. In all transitions I indicate whether we are moving up or down by a different noise. With the walk to canter they need to sit behind and come from behind so the massive advantage of using your voice is you are indicating that they need to prepare and then you ask.