Slowing down the canter - help please!!

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DartmoorLover

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Hi all.
At the riding school I usually ride a 6/7 (?) year old mare. I have one lesson a week on her and cant get her tack etc changed as she is a riding school pony. She is very comfy in walk and trot but her canter and canter transitions are horrible! She will trot really.fast and does not often go when.you ask her to. When she does go.she.goes.at full speed and becomes increasingly difficult to stop. I had her.going nicely off my leg a few weeks ago - in general I was.the.only one who cantered her. I had not ridden her for a a few weejs due to RI putting me.on different ponies (fair enough lol!). I last rode her monday and couldnt easily.stop her which led to me falling off and hitting the fence! So the point of this long post is how can i improve her canter abd trabsitions?
I am under 16 btw.
Thanks and well.done for gettung this.far x
 
aw i hope you are ok? tbh id ask to ride something else, something that is perhaps more established and better schooled as this pony sounds pretty green and unbalanced.
 
I'm just about ok thanks, strained a muscle in my shoulder or something but otherwise fine. Trouble with asking to ride something else is that RI is un sympathetic so makes me ride her and she (pony) had been getting better with her transitions! Hey ho x
 
DartmoorLover said:
I'm just about ok thanks, strained a muscle in my shoulder or something but otherwise fine. Trouble with asking to ride something else is that RI is un sympathetic so makes me ride her and she (pony) had been getting better with her transitions! Hey ho x
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improving this pony's balance and transitions isn't something you can really do much about in one lesson though. It sounds as though the pony is young and green as I said. Novice pony and novice rider doesn't really work. To make the best of your transition to canter make sure your trot is good, eg balanced and not rushed. Don't let yourself tip forward as you ask for canter and don't throw the reins at her. (something i was always guilty of). In canter use a strong half halt then release every couple of strides instead of just pulling against her. Don't be too hard on yourself though as improving something like this can take weeks of schooling on an almost daily basis by an experienced rider. tbh if the RI wont let you ride something else to help you get your confidence and a better feel for it, Id be going elsewhere. Out of interest, what does your RI tell you to do?
 
Very difficult if you're not in control of what the pony does on the days you don't ride. Consistency, checking all the typical pain things including tack as you've mentioned, lunging etc. all may help. There honestly isn't much you can do once a week in a riding school lesson.
Can you look for somewhere else to have lessons that thinks more about improving your riding rather than insisting you ride ponies that don't sound totally suitable?
 
Instructor tells me to pull and releade and lean back. To be fair she doesnt make me ride her as such, I just seem to ride her in a lot of my lessons even if she isnt the only pony avaliable lol. Thanks so far! :) x
 
Make sure that you have established a nice rhythmical sitting trot and ask for canter on corner of the school by keeping your inside leg on the girth and bringing your outside leg slightly back, sit deep with your shoulders back and push with the outside leg. Then after a few strides, say 'steady' to yourself and the horse and half halt, steady her again, going into the next corner, then repeat the canter aids if she feels as if she's going to stop/break back into trot.
 
Remember to use your legs. It sound counter productive I know. If she is just rushing around like a loon it is tempting not to touch her with your legs as you think it will make her go faster. However, using your legs will get her using herself properly.
 
Hey there, have you been taught the half halt yet? Seems an obvious question but I managed to go through years of RS lessons without learning it properly and it was only really when I got my own rather erm forward horse that I began to appreciate it's usefulness. Not going to bother going though the aids etc here as I'm sure your instructor can do that far better in person than I can do sat typing here.

First thing I'd be trying to get a handle on is rushing in trot. Every time she tries to rush off with you half-halt her and re balance her. This can get very boring and frustrating but if you stay calm and consistent it will pay off. My old pony used to take any and every excuse to trot off at a hundred miles an hour and I struggled for several months to have some sort of speed control. One lesson my instructor really got me focusing on rhythm and on half-halting him every time he started to think about speeding off with me. Took me a god 20 minutes of being super consistent and making sure that I kept my contact soft when he was being good but by god did it work. Not saying it was the end of our troubles but was certainly a turning point. So yeah every time you ask for canter and get horrid, rushy trot steady her up and ask again even if it takes several attempts. Also make sure that you are very clear in your aids that canter is what you're looking for

Next thing would be, when you are in canter, don't set your hands against her and get into a pulling match. Again try to keep your contact soft (this does not mean washing line reins), sit deep and try not to let yourself tip forwards and remember to breathe! Again lots of little half-halts are your friend here. Also try to keep your legs wrapped around her sides here, a lot of people will instinctively take the leg off a sharp horse but not necessarily a good thing as this can then lead to them trying to shoot off every time the leg brushes their side.

As you say at the end of the day she is a RS pony so any improvement you can make in the space of your lesson time is limited but that doesn't mean it's impossible to improve the way she goes for you (RS ponies are very astute at working out who is on their back and what they will allow them to get away with)
 
This might sound really daft but something a friend did when her pony was speeding up too much in canter, and pulling her, was instead of pulling back, she just cantered round a bit (in an enclosed space) without putting any pressure on the reins - as a result, the pony couldn't lean on her but had to steady and balance himself, then when she picked up the reins again he was much better.
 
I had similar problems with a RS horse. Once he heard the C word he was off. I really worked on making him wait until I asked for canter. Constantly slowing and collecting his trot and getting him listening to me before I allowed him to canter. There were times when I just resigned myself to just letting him go until he relaxed. He is a particularly tense horse and too much pulling would result in him speeding up. It was very much what Boulty suggested doing that worked. Also the RS did a lot of schooling with him. Like you I was limited to how much I could influence him as he would be used by lots of others between my lessons. Keep relaxed and breathe. It's the difficult ones who teach us the most :)
 
I think the first thing you have to realise is REALITY! I take it that you are far from having lessons with Laura B. or Charlotte D. - and little demon pony is far nearer to the Wellington cartoon character than "Alf" or "Valengro" - one lesson a week is hardly enough to build a relationship with one particular pony and all the time you aren't riding - he is terrorising other young ladies!

If you really want to be the next generation of international dressage riders my advice is to change your riding school but having said that - why not just have some FUN! I started riding cows and later when I progressed to mad ponies had no idea how to even spell dressage let alone do it - my dream was to be able to stay on a bucking bronc or do old fashioned vaulting ( no lycra suits in my day ) and generally be a cowboy - or a Red Indian because I more often than not rode bareback.

I'm pretty sure that if you can learn to sit this chap's mad canter and he learns that he can't throw you - he'll calm down and listen to you more. Don't do anything deliberately dangerous without thinking of the possible consequences but - enjoy yourself!
 
TrasaM said:
1stCA! You rode cows ! Lol. We had lots of those but I never considered I could mount up and ride one :p
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Yes and they all had horns on when I was a boy! Dairy Shorthorn cows backs were extremely boney as you may have noticed so to ride one you need to adopt a much more leaney back stance than for horses and also have to tense up the old maximus glutimous too! No bridle or even a halter but a piece of string from the horns for reins - I didn't stay on board very long usually! In fact I once spent far longer evading a good thrashing from the cowman who pursued me across two fields - but I gave him the slip lying doggo under a hedge - despite him coming so close I could have reached out and undone his boots! Good training for soldiering later on!!!Hahah.
 
Agree with the advice you have been given. To add:

I've just had a lesson on a schoolmaster to help me with my horse. When controlling the canter speed I was asked to firstly maintain a steady trot, ask for canter on a corner with a slight inside bend, sit up (to the point of leaning backwards, or that's how it feels but I am assured that is actually upright!) and whilst maintaining a slight bend with the inside hand, use the outside hand to half halt - (think hand to leg) - maintain the canter by sitting up and keeping leg on, but half halting with outside hand if the horse is tanking off.

Good luck, a good instructor should be able to help you with this further.
 
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