Ideas to help balance the canter

[Charla]

Horse is now 6, and is green for his age. Very big expressive paces. Trot is now balanced and uphill, really using his back end. Canter is the issue! The canter is fast, flat, on the forehand and unbalanced. Horse also does not seem confident in the canter. His canter is naturally very big. If you ask him to come up and collect slightly he falls back in to the trot. What exercises are there, ridden or not, that can help improve the balance of the canter? On the lunge, the canter is also rushed and on the forehand. He will offer a few balanced strides to begin with and then just seems to loose it and rush. Please help!

 

[be positive]

I have one similar and due to having nearly a year off he has reverted, we spent time doing very short, 3-5 strides of canter then trotting to rebalance before cantering again, on a circle he could manage several up and down transitions within one circle, by keeping each canter short he seemed to gain in confidence and balance so he was able to gradually remain in canter for longer.
Forcing it makes him worse, he got faster and flatter but by stopping before that point he was far happier, just got to get back there again with mine.

Once the canter is more established there are plenty of exercises that will help, walk to canter being one, counter canter is also really helpful but they require the confidence and balance first.

 

[FubsyMog]

I will start with the caveat that I am just a RS rider and so of limited experience, but the following exercise is one we were working on in my last lesson to improve the quality and balance of the canter. Quite a few of the horses at the RS are quite capable of nice, correct work, but tend to slop along due to the nature of their job, hence this exercise, which did create a noticeable difference in almost all the horses.

The exercise: The main part of the exercise is done down the long side. Pick up trot. Trot a circle (the set-up circle) in the corner at the start of one long side. As the circle hits the track again, ask for canter. Canter down the long side before dropping back to trot for another circle in the corner at the other end of the long side (the balancing circle).

You can repeat down the other long side.

You are only getting a relatively short canter down the long side (obviously depends on the size of your schooling area), so it doesn't have time to flatten out (horse I ride is a big hunter type and very prone to getting strung out).

 

[dotty1]

Turn on the forehand, then ask for canter asap, is great for getting them sitting back on their hocks also on a 20 m circle repeatedly trot half, canter half, they will anticipate the change but will settle to a more balanced canter.