Improving canter

[Cob Life]

Okay in spirit of my first resolution to be improving our canter work I need your favourite exercises, specifically for improving and sharpening up canter transitions.

We are doing a lot of lateral work and lots of walk trot, trot halt, halt trot transitions to strengthen him

 

[Northern Hare]

Using the corners of the school, canter down the long side, transition to trot and then halt just before corner. Walk the corner really bending your horse into the corner, then halt as you arrive on the short side and straighten him. Then either halt to canter, or via trot to canter. Repeat exercise on the following corners. Change rein and repeat.

After a few repetitions, your horse will start to anticipate the downward transition just before the corner, which will help you shorten his canter stride. Also helps with the the upwards transitions.?

 

[oldie48]

Canter to walk, turn on forehand and into canter on the other rein is something I'm doing with Mr D. I have to make sure he doesn't get stuck in the turn on the forehand ie keeps moving forward and then I get a good collected canter with energy.

 

[Jellymoon]

Leg yield to canter is quite good, either by spiralling out on a circle, or leg yield from centre line and into canter.
And counter canter.

 

[Cob Life]

Using the corners of the school, canter down the long side, transition to trot and then halt just before corner. Walk the corner really bending your horse into the corner, then halt as you arrive on the short side and straighten him. Then either halt to canter, or via trot to canter. Repeat exercise on the following corners. Change rein and repeat.

After a few repetitions, your horse will start to anticipate the downward transition just before the corner, which will help you shorten his canter stride. Also helps with the the upwards transitions.?

That’s a good one, his trot halt trot transitions are getting quite sharp now so I’ll try this when I next ride

 

[Cob Life]

Leg yield to canter is quite good, either by spiralling out on a circle, or leg yield from centre line and into canter.
And counter canter.

We do lots of leg yields, his right ly in trot is a bit weak so I think I need to strengthen that up first but I’ll add this to my little collection of exercises

 

[annam233]

Not sure if this is much help to you but bounces are so so important to me for improving their hindend which encourages them to use their power instead of run from it.

Plenty of small but repetitive circles in each corner to ensure pony is light on your hand, bending and waiting for the circle. Otherwise plenty of transitions, lateral work and so on will help hugely overtime.

 

[Cob Life]

Not sure if this is much help to you but bounces are so so important to me for improving their hindend which encourages them to use their power instead of run from it.

Plenty of small but repetitive circles in each corner to ensure pony is light on your hand, bending and waiting for the circle. Otherwise plenty of transitions, lateral work and so on will help hugely overtime.

Our lateral work has improved greatly, and that quality of his trot is much better too, we just need to get the canter sorted now.

I’m not the baste jumper as I don’t do a lot anymore, I can pop a small course happily enough but I’m not skilled enough to be able to use bounces to help influence the canter.

 

[AFB]

Leg yield to canter was a great one for us - in walk turn just before 3/4 line - get a good leg yield step and ask straight from walk to canter. Because the hind legs are underneath from the LY it helped to teach us both what a nice uphill canter transition was.

 

[CanteringCarrot]

Edit: not useful. Misread.

 

[Flying_Form]

Okay in spirit of my first resolution to be improving our canter work I need your favourite exercises, specifically for improving and sharpening up canter transitions.

We are doing a lot of lateral work and lots of walk trot, trot halt, halt trot transitions to strengthen him

canter poles of all type - regular distance (approx 4 human steps), slightly longer striding to lengthen, shorter strides to collect, raised poles, on a circle, on a serpentine, also love leaving flat and raised poles in random parts of the arena to improve my and the horses eye for distances and to get them to do polework when they aren’t expecting it. Also gridwork is great if you wish to incorporate some jumping or some smaller poles or raised poles!

loads of walk to canter transitions, but also don’t forget about your downward transitions too from canter to trot or canter to walk.

and then some circle work to improve balance, and maybe some simple changes or flying changes if they’re experienced enough for it! Have fun ?

 

[Flying_Form]

Also forgot to say - I read some article a few years ago about a flatwork activity where you ask your horse to extend the trot or the canter on the long side of the arena and collect on the short sides. Since then it’s been something I’ve always incorporated into my warm ups whether I’m jumping or doing flatwork so you might consider it too!

 

[Cob Life]

Also forgot to say - I read some article a few years ago about a flatwork activity where you ask your horse to extend the trot or the canter on the long side of the arena and collect on the short sides. Since then it’s been something I’ve always incorporated into my warm ups whether I’m jumping or doing flatwork so you might consider it too!

We do this all the time, and my instructors favourite one because it really gets me riding is trot, walk one stride, trot. It’s a lot harder than you think to only get one stride!
We also do 3 lop serpentine with a transition across the centre line, trot to Halt back to trot really gets him sitting on his hocks,

 

[iknowmyvalue]

For sharpening up canter transitions I found using figure eights very helpful with my lazy boy. So cantering a circle, back to trot for a few strides over the centre, then picking up the other lead. It did lead to him anticipating slightly but that was ok for me on him!

For a more advanced version you can do the same exercise but with canter-walk-walk-canter

 

[Cob Life]

He was much sharper on the transition today, we tried walk to canter and I could feel him try to take that step under but couldn’t quite get it so I think I need to get him a bit stronger first