Rushing in trot after canter

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Ridingmoo

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Hi everyone

I have a mare who after a lot of work can now go lovely in the walk and trot however I am really struggling with her canter.
She is very forward going and tends to rush on the forehand in the canter. I have been told the best thing to do is transitions however once I have cantered once it blows her mind and I can't get her to do anything without anticipating the canter. I can't get her to relax in walk or trot at all so she ends up hollow and on the forehand in them too.
I was wondering if anyone has any advice on how to work on this?
Am I better to keep doing transitions even though the quality of the trot is rubbish or am I better to keep trotting until she is working properly however this may not be for the rest of the session?
Yesterday for example she was working nicely in halt walk and trot, put her into canter on the left rein and it was rushed but she was listening and we did some spirals which was helping her slow down and listen. However as soon as I dropped to trot she was hollowing and fast and even after 15 minutes of trying to get her to relax in the trot and doing walk to trot transitions she just wouldn't slow down. I ended up as soon as I got a couple of strides of slower trot putting her into canter on the right rein just so I could work her evenly but this canter was awful.
She is the same on a hack as in the school i.e. one good canter but then it unravels in all gaits!
Any help or tips would be appreciated!
Thank you
 
have you a steep hill near you that you can canter on?

I had a sulky racer that would absolutely panic in canter and then go into a 40 mile an hour trot after it. the handiest way to stop her was to find a steep hill, canter for three strides and bring her back to halt as soon as I could and really really reward her as soon as she halted.

it was a bit horrible and messy for ages and the halt would take a while, but eventually she understood the exercise. the hill helped her learn to take her weight behind and strengthen, the steepness stopped the canter being uncontrollable and once she learnt she wasn't going to be cantering for long she would balance herself and get ready for the trot and halt. the short number of strides also meant she didn't get herself worked up. it really helped my mare, I just treated it like it was a game, so once she understood she really enjoyed it.

your main issue is sounds is that she is on the forehand, and the quality of the canter or her balance won't improve until she learns to take the weight on the hind more. if you aren't confident doing it then it is absolutely priceless to get a pro in who can teach the horse. I had one horse who I was trying to teach canter properly for ages and we were were making very slow progress. a good dressage pro sat up and she had him with a super canter in two weeks. it made a massive amount of difference and he was a much happier horse after it.
 
Unfortunately no hill to canter. Our best hills are on the roads which does limit us so I think you are right and the best course of action is get a professional to ride.
I did however try the canter a few strides then halt last night and actually it did make a difference so something I will definitely build on until I can someone to ride (we currently can't have external people coming on to the yard)
Thank you for the advice!
 
yeah the key with my mare was to do a small number of strides in each pace. if she did too many strides she would get wound up. and then it's a case of really teaching them to slow from the seat and half halt. I used to have to half halt every second stride to keep my mare from rushing, but she got there in the end.

the other horse was more complex and I just wanted able to teach him to balance for some reason. I wish I'd gone to the pro years beforehand I would have made life user for myself!
 
My horse used to be like this when he was younger. I couldn't do lots or trot/canter transitions or canter of only a few strides because it would fizz him up.

I would canter him 2-3 circuits of the school so he could get his balance in canter and then bring him back to trot. When he rushed off in trot I would slow my rising and give half halts to slow his trot down. If he still didn't listen I would bring him back to walk and walk a couple of circuits of the school in walk and then start trot again. Eventually I could do shorter canters or canter a few stride without him getting too hyper.

I feel like he would rush because he was unbalanced and the longer canter helped him find his balance. I would usually do the catering towards the end of my schooling session and once he had done a controllable trot after catering we would finish and walk off. I did take him quite a while to learn to slow down in general and I think consistency is what eventually taught him what I wanted. It might not work for every horse but this is what worked for my horse. Also had lots of lessons
 
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My mare also gets very rushed and just wants to canter some more, but there’s really no easy fix. For a long time I saves the canter for last because everything would be rubbish after canter. But she needs to be able to work properly and focused after canter and sometimes I’ve felt that I made it worse by saving it for the end of the ride. So I’ve actually started cantering quite early in the warm up instead of putting it off - I always walk 15-20 mins, then trot about 5 and then go for the first canter. Nothing fancy, just big lines and getting a nice and round feeling.

Then we go back to trot and work on regaining focus with lots of different lateral movements, change of hand, halts, reinbacks etc - I keep her mind busy with trot work instead of letting her think “when are we going to canter next?”. On of my favourite things to do to get the horse to balance and focus on my seat is that if I do rising trot I will change on the long side so that I actually sit the “wrong hand” (and then of course change back before the short side). This just makes the horse more aware of following my seat.

And then we canter some more and then work on the trot again and so on. She’s slowly getting less rushed.
 
Arts was pretty bad for this when I first started doing canter. She did it because she was anticipating the next canter transition, so the temptation was to not do too many transitions, but actually what she needed was to do a lot of transitions until it was no longer a thing. However, I didn't want her to rush in between canter transitions, so after a downwards transition I would give up to two half halts to ask her to steady and if she whizzed on through them I would halt her, then back up into trot and carry on with trot canter trot transitions.

You have to ride calmly and quietly through the ugly messy phase though and sort of just have faith that it will get better.
 
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