Rushing forwards when asked to canter

[SaffronWelshDragon]

Hi all,

My 15 year old Welsh Cob rushes forwards when transitioning from trot to canter. I've had her for 8 years, and IIRC when I got her she had trouble transitioning from trot to canter, although she was only about 7 years old and very green.

Over the last few years we've mainly been hacking, and only occasionally do any schooling. She's very good in walk and trot when in the school, but we get to a corner and I ask her to canter, she rushes forward (like an extended canter), and I have to pull her up to get her back to a normal canter. Once we achieve a 'normal' canter shes fine, but does pull a bit. She's generally very good to ride, although can be excitable. She's ridden in a snaffle. Now I'm not sure, but the fact that I haven't had riding lessons since I was a kid (I'm 23 now) isn't helping?

Any suggestions welcome as I don't know how to improve this situation.

 

[ladybones]

I had the same problem with my horse although he is 17hh so it was pretty scary when he lept into canter! I went to my instructer for help thinking she would give me some exercises to do it sort it out, but no. She suggested we just do as many canter transitions as possible until cantering in the school stops being so exciting and just becomes another thing like walk and trot, also doing it over and over helped him find his own balence through the transition. it took a couple of weeks hard schooling but it is locked in now and he can just step into canter. I know its a bit of a bore doing things over and over again but it really worked for me. Hope this helps you.

 

[scrumpygus]

How about lots of transitions so once you achieve a reasonable canter come back to trot and ask again until you can praise her for not rushing - i would suggest that you do this on a 20 metre circle as a long side may invite her to rush down it. If she will do direct transition - walk to canter this will help also. Also how about lungeing with a pessoa maybe and try to get her doing lots of transitions without any interference from a rider. Dont know if thatll help but good luck x

 

[SaffronWelshDragon]

Thanks very much

She behaves well in walk and trot, but once she realises she's about to canter she'll start getting excited. I suppose once it becomes a normal thing the excitement should wear off

 

[Cyberchick]

Start practising walk to canter transitions to help sharpen the aids off the leg and to get her springing in to the transition.

 

[Tickles]

Also - do get an instructor to take a look. For less than the cost of say, a meal & cinema ticket, I have a great freelance instructor who is very good at looking at individual horse-rider combinations. You don't have to have lessons all the time either, you could just have one or two to work on this.

Some horses need a much more forward trot so the transition is almost only changing the footfall pattern not the speed, some tend to run the trot into it so need the opposite, I'm riding a horse who needs much more inside leg and almost nothing on the outside at all, used to ride one who was excellent with lots of canter transitions as part of another exercise, e.g. riding serpentines with canter on the loopy parts and trot or walk on the straight bits, everybody (four and two footed!) works best slightly differently.

There are some fantastically knowledgeable people on here (I learn a lot from following these forums) but do go on & treat yourself too!

 

[Annagain]

Is she anticipating in the trot or just rushing off once she's in canter? If it's the former, start introducing bits of sitting trot into your riding, sit for just one extra beat at first and then go straight back to rising , then two, three etc until you can do a good sitting trot without her anticipating the canter. Then you can take her by surprise and ask for canter when she's least expecting it, if she starts to get excited come striaght back to trot and do it again and only let her continue in the canter if she does it calmly, she needs to know that she does it your way or not at all, if she loves cantering that much she'll want to do it and so will come round fairly quickly!

 

[SaffronWelshDragon]

Thank you again everyone for you help, I'm noting all this down and I do appreciate it

I do like the idea of have the odd lesson, although we're not very posh and ride at the bottom of my field in an electric-fenced grass paddock! Out of interest, does anyone know of a freelance instructor around NW Kent?

Annagain - I kinda feel like she's anticipating going into a canter when we hit a corner, but she also rushes off when asked to actually canter - so she seems to do both. However, I regularly do a sitting trot with her, which she's very well behaved at.

 

[SaffronWelshDragon]

Well, I rode Saffy this evening. Did the usual warm up in walk and trot, then had a go at walk to canter. I made sure I gave the correct aids - and sat up straight (my vice is leaning forwards slightly into canter!) and although we didn't get straight into the canter after a few practices she was nearly there. I have to say it was amazing the difference! Straight into canter was smooth and unhurried. After a while I tried for a trot to canter, and it seemed much calmer than usual.

Thanks very much everyone, obviously I will continue to do the walk to canter transition as well as trot to canter. Going to make sure we both put in some hard graft in the evenings

Now I'll have to think of something else to ask you clever clever people

Thanks again!