Schooling Canter tips help help help!!!!!!!!!!

Did quite a good exercise in my lesson. Go across the diagonal in trot. When you reach X do a half circle (changing the rein) & as you go back to the track, ask for canter. It sets them off in a nice gymnastic canter. Canter a 20m circle. Come back to trot. Go across next diagonal to X & repeat (opposite rein). Soon gets them thinking & makes sure you aids are there.

101 schooling exercises is good too. Things like pushing the canter on for a few strides & then collecting for a few strides. (whoo & goa I think they call it!)
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Poles on a 20metre circle at 3,6,9 and 12 o'clock. aim for the middle of each pole, look up and keep cantering. eventually it will teach the horse to balance its-self and get into a suitable rhythm. it'll feel afwul initially if your horse is lacking. try not to set your horse up as he should be able to sort himself out. however try it in trot first as if this feels horrible then you'll probably need to work on the trot first to establish a good rhythm. i've found this exercise very useful for the flat and jumping. have a go, its easy enough to do!!
 
My mare's canter used to farily rubbish as she's built downhill. Because she found it difficult she stiffened her neck and hollowed a lot against me. She was always much worse on the left rein. I started by working on improving her balance and suppleness in trot and eventually on her better rein in canter, hoping this would feed into her canter work in general.

In terms of suppling her, I used lots of lateral work and turns/circles. Shallow loops, exaggerating the bend to outside/inside on a circle, leg yield etc. Leg-yield on a circle also has the benefit of getting her really stepping under with her inside hind. I also did lots of shoulder in to get her to use her back end more.

To ask her to take more weight behind I did lots of transitions. However, she's quite sharp so transitions between paces often tipped her over the edge into bonkers. Instead I used transitions within the pace - similar I imagine to whoa and go that abbey-tilly mentioned.

When I introduced canter I always kept them short and stayed on a 20m circle so she didn't have chance to get onto her forehand. Eventually I progressed to cnatering around the school doing 20m and 10m circles at various points to keep her listening.

Hope that helps...v long for some reason.

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