Self-carriage in canter problems! Help!

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AngelicMagician

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Okay so my Welsh Section C finds it incredibly hard to keep in canter, like just about able to do 1 20m circle and I have to flap around! She struggles to bing her hind legs underneath her wich is probably the cause, why does she so this and is there anything I can do to improve it? I really want to get out and do things with her but its so embarrassing when you trot round the show jumping course! She is very very scopey and has a lovely walk and trot and square halts for dressage buts its the canter that lets us down. =[ x
 
My horse had the very same problem last year when she was 6!
With us it purely got better with lots of practice and endurance training.

I found that by asking her to canter longer and longer each time, that she could eventually keep it easer. Also I did my riding kind of like interval training, so I would do work in walk and trot, and periodically do canter work, then when I got what I wanted I would go back to walk and trot work and so on.

A lot of the time when a horse drops back to a trot in canter it is because they like the security of the rider holding them.

Also lots of walk to canter work will encourage your horse not to break into a trot and will give you a more forward, uphill canter! :)
 
No quick fix unfortunatly! I'd this prob with my mare, getting her to maintain a canter for one lap of the arena left me out of breath! Now after couple mths of backing my leg up with schooling whip has done the job! Also what helped was lots of canter work in side reins and lots of hill work to help strengthen her back end.
 
I found when my mare 'dropped out' of canter, it was entirely my fault. I allowed her to move me forwards, so I didn't sit up enough or sit deep enough and I blocked her back. When I sorted out my position, kept my lower leg in the right place, not letting it creep forwards, kept my head up and my shoulders back, that the mare sustained the canter with no problem.
 
How old is she? Has she just started to do this or has always been the same?

Is she working correctly in walk and trot? If yes she may just be unbalanced and find the canter hard, I would do lots of trot to canter transitions only canter for half a circle and go back to trot before she struggles, only ask for the canter when she is soft in your hand in trot, another way to get the back end engaged is loads of walk to trot transitions 4 strides of walk then 4 at trot and so on, but aim for as many transitions as you can in one schooling session.
 
I was taught by a european dressage trainer that transitions were the work of the devil and in fact you should work the horse forward all the time and getting them to maintain the canter first before adding lots of transitions and before asking for an outline make sure they could canter without stopping for at least three circuits of a school. This involved lots of fittening work in walk, trot, and straight line canters. This was a very young potential dressage warmblood bred for the job but a fraction lazy.
Once he could maintain the canter he was asked to come rounder and softer and then we introduced walk to canter transitions still cantering forward for atleast a circuit and finally introducing lots of walk to canter with 20m circles thrown in
 
I'd work on the canter in straight lines first, either hacking or in large spaces. Till she's at the point you can lengthen & shorten the stride reasonably well. Only then would I start doing shapes requiring any bend.
 
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