Schooling Advice

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Megibo

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Will soon be in the position to school my horse again (moving to a yard with a school).
she can go at any pace in walk/trot and in trot offers an outline works really well.
my problem is canter; she canters very fast and motorbikes around the corners. going on a 20m circle doesn't seem to help this. how could i make her slower and more balanced in her canter? straight lines are no problem!

the only time there started to be any difference was when i used an Abbot Davies rein. Primarily used it once or twice a week schooling in walk and trot and an improvement came in her schooling work without it.
When I eventually used it on her in canter she wasn't able to lean on me and eventually started to canter more slowly and offer an outline. However for various reasons i stopped using it and we moved yards. now i'd like to work on her canter again.

well done if you got through all my waffle, any advice?
 
I'd canter on a long(ish) rein and start by trying to get her to balance herself. Then ask for a 10/15m circle in every or every other corner. I've found a smallish circle in the corners encourages them to wait and sit back on their hocks to prepare themselves for the circle (which they tend to begin to anticipate) :)

Does that make sense?

J&C
 
Personally I would avoid using the balancing rein and help her learn to balance herself without gadgets instead. It sounds as though she is going on her forehand in canter which is why she is struggling with the corners and needs to get faster - reminds me of my pony when I got her. I would do lots and lots of transitions to help her take her weight back onto her hindquarters. Don't worry where her head is at this stage - that will come later. At this point the most important thing is to get a regular three beat rhythm and to have think about where her weight is rather than where her head is if that makes sense. Hope that helps a bit!
 
If she bombs off, come straight back to halt! Then start again. It might feel a bit brutal to begin with, but she will understand that rushing is a no no! Do it on a circle, circle in to 10m and out to 20m by leg yield. LOTS of transitions. Shes rushing coz shes probably on the forehand and not engaging hindquarters. Rushings stops her working and sitting back on to quarters and working through. I wouldnt think you need a balancing rein. Just little and often and lots of it:)
 
unbalanced said:
Personally I would avoid using the balancing rein and help her learn to balance herself without gadgets instead. It sounds as though she is going on her forehand in canter which is why she is struggling with the corners and needs to get faster - reminds me of my pony when I got her. I would do lots and lots of transitions to help her take her weight back onto her hindquarters. Don't worry where her head is at this stage - that will come later. At this point the most important thing is to get a regular three beat rhythm and to have think about where her weight is rather than where her head is if that makes sense. Hope that helps a bit!
Click to expand...

Ditto this.
She needs to learn to balance herself without relying on something else to give her that security. My girl used to bomb around the school in canter due to being unbalanced and extremely on the forehand. What helped was many many many transitions. They don't even have to include canter initially. Just putting in numerous and varied transitions (can include circles, serpentines etc) will help her to sit back and carry her weight more on her hindquarters. From there, the canter should improve and you can start to introduce canter transitions, transitions within the canter, etc. The most important thing is to remain balanced, with an even rhythm. Good luck with her ;)

ETA: having read previous post, just thought that I'd add that shoulder-in & leg-yield also helped mine to get her to engage her hindquarters more, so lateral work could also be handy.
 
One of my horses had an extremely long canter and he found it very hard to balance-the exercise that worked wonders for us was starting off practicing turn on the forehand and direct transitions from walk-canter and halt-canter. Then combine the two together on a 20m circle. Start of in walk, halt and ask for a turn on the forehand and then ask for canter-only for 5 or 6 strides then walk again and repeat. It gets the horses using their hindquarters and with only cantering a few strides on a circle they don't rush or get excited and run on. I was told by my instructor to do this at least every other schooling session for a month(amongst other exercises of course!) and apart from my horse starting to anticipate what he was doing we were always placed in top 10 in dressage at the ODEs we did. Worked wonders for me!
Also cantering diamonds and squares help!
 
kgj66 said:
One of my horses had an extremely long canter and he found it very hard to balance-the exercise that worked wonders for us was starting off practicing turn on the forehand and direct transitions from walk-canter and halt-canter. Then combine the two together on a 20m circle. Start of in walk, halt and ask for a turn on the forehand and then ask for canter-only for 5 or 6 strides then walk again and repeat. It gets the horses using their hindquarters and with only cantering a few strides on a circle they don't rush or get excited and run on. I was told by my instructor to do this at least every other schooling session for a month(amongst other exercises of course!) and apart from my horse starting to anticipate what he was doing we were always placed in top 10 in dressage at the ODEs we did. Worked wonders for me!
Also cantering diamonds and squares help!
Click to expand...

thanks you have just reminded me of something an instructor taught me once in a lesson. it did get her very alert and on to her hindquarters so that she could pop straight into canter and be ready for what i was going to ask
 
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