Teach youngster to open up the canter?

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Charla

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What’s the best way to school a youngster to travel more forwards, especially in the canter? Her canter is very together, perhaps a little stuffy and it’s like she’s scared to let go and open up her frame. Trying to keep things fun with it for her. Obviously out hacking across a field following a buddy is a good way, although she does find this highly exciting so I need to wear very sticky bum jods and pluck up the courage! Any suggestions for in the school? She tires quickly too...
 
Definitely easier outside of the school, but in the school there are a few things you can try. Firstly i would assess her responses in trot. Can you slightly condense and open the trot? If this is a pace that she is more confident and comfortable in then you can use that to teach her the concept that she needs to learn in canter. It just needs to be a small difference, and then when she gets that you can try applying the same idea to the canter - a little bit on and a little bit back until she finds out that she can change the canter and still keep her balance etc.
If you've started ground poles then canter poles might also help and would give variety? This is all assuming that it's just a baby thing and not a fundamental problem with the canter.
 
Echo MPs advice.

I’d also suggest getting off her back a bit and seeing if she finds it a bit easier to open her canter up then, sticking to just a few strides on the long side to start.
It may also be worth having a physio look at her, in case she has got some areas of discomfort that are stopping her from releasing through her back, plus obviously check that her saddle isn’t causing her any problems.
 
I agree with the posts above and would add that in my experience the best way to open them up and get the back moving is to get off their back cantering uphill out hacking, sitting deep tends to be counter productive as when they want to move on they are held back and tend to become even more tight, it is usually easier to "sit" to a few humps or bucks if you are not sitting deep in the first place and can send them forward out of it, they soon learn to get on with it rather than mess about wasting energy, having a decent hill to canter up really helps.

I also find doing some basic jumping helps them think forward and open up without any pressure to do so.
 
yeah uphill, off the back is the best way. they usually run out of puff and its easier to sit any high jinx
 
As above, I taught my current horse to Canter on the local all weather gallops. He is massive and has a huge canter and just couldn’t find his balance in a 20 x 40. We don’t have much good Canter hacking hence using the gallops, but if you have some decent field margins that will work just as well.
 
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