Tips for getting a better canter for jumping...

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lyndsayberesford

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Jumped Basil last night over a little course (first course since his injury in July) and he jumped really well considering his canter still needs a lot of work.

He needs to sit up a lot more on his hocks and less on the forehand, so need tips to get a nice big strong canter where i dont feel like i need to hold him off the fences so much.

He is on full livery so the plan is for them to lunge with Pessoa on a regular basis etc to get him engaging more from behind. He is pretty well balanced in canter but insists on being heavy in front, which results in me overriding, holding him off his fences and landing in more of a heap rather than sitting behind and waiting.

Tips please??
 
A useful exercise is to teach your horse to lengthen and shorten in canter and the easiest way to do it is to canter down the longside of your school, count the strides, now add in another, and another and another till really collected, then do it again and go down in less strides. Its a brilliant exercise and teaches the horse to be able to change its canter. Once you have that, another interesting exercise to test you is to put poles down in a small course.. but just poles but YOU decide which fence is an oxer, an upright etc etc and ride accordingly. This will show you if you are being effective.

As for the horse leaning down on you and not sitting, that is work, half halts and lots of transitions to get your horse off. I did have a strong boy who did that and finally ended up putting him in a gag for jumping to raise him. He was fine when schooling but when jumping seemed to think it was better to go with his head on the floor. Did take us a long time to arrive at that particular conclusion though!

I am trying to teach my young horse to collect and extend right now. At the moment, I can get slower or faster, I can't actually get any stride length change! Do build up your canter work though. If you are asking him to work in a different way he will be using different muscles and will be sore if you over do it. Think of it as him going to gym after a long break and work him accordingly.
 
Lots of grids and canter poles :) Grids will help him stay engaged and not running down distances, and poles (especially slightly raised poles) will help develop strength in the canter. I would also work on counter canter, cantering diamonds making sure you are only turning with the outside aids as much as possible, and also using smaller circles but riding forward through them to keep him engaged and working, but letting the circle "sit" him up a bit :)
 
KatB said:
Lots of grids and canter poles :) Grids will help him stay engaged and not running down distances, and poles (especially slightly raised poles) will help develop strength in the canter. I would also work on counter canter, cantering diamonds making sure you are only turning with the outside aids as much as possible, and also using smaller circles but riding forward through them to keep him engaged and working, but letting the circle "sit" him up a bit :)
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Interesting what you say about grids. It just does not work for mine. I seem to spend for ever setting up his canter before I can go down it!. Like the idea of the diamonds though.
 
Luci, you need to do less ;) make sure you put poles down between the fences to make them look, and make them back themselves off.
 
Thanks for that

He doesnt run, infact we are just getting him going forwards which has taken a long time to do! Not strong in the sense of pulling etc.

I like the idea of lengthening and shortening and riding diamonds etc. Was hoping to leave grid work a little longer as he is recovering from Cannonbone fracture so wanted to stick more to single fences just for a little while longer before asking for bounces or 1 stride doubles etc, but definitely an idea for a few weeks time.

I have recently been teaching him more to go off the outside aids i.e by riding square circles and using my outside leg and hand to keep him straighter as he has tendency to overbend and fall out through shoulder and bum just drifts to follow.

Some great food for thought though! :)

Quite hard as he is 17.2hh so a fair sized beast and i have to say im not the fittest i have ever been due to not riding as much while he has been off injured
 
been advised not to think for him and literally leave him to lift his shoulders too and learn for himself. Easier said than done, and i am guilty of doing too much for him already!
 
An often overlooked part of the solution can be to canter. Lots. :)

I can't say for the OP, obviously, but I do see many people who, when they are schooling on the flat, do the majority of their work in trot and then almost seem to have a little canter 'program' they do at the end. This is necessary with very green horses but often becomes a habit. Make sure you work IN the canter, not just ON the canter. Don't think of the canter as a 'special' gait, make sure you use it to go places and do other things, like work on bending and stretching. It can be interesting to see how long you actually spend in canter relative to trot. Try spending a schooling session where you canter for a set time (allowing for the horse's fitness and strength, of course) and then try to extend that time.

Walking up hills in a lengthened shape - like a bascule - can do a lot to help, too, as it uses many of the same muscles without the accompanying concussion.
 
great replies!

will try the counter canter bit, only problem being a showjumper and not really "dressage" trained he seems to like flying changes lol! but gives me something to work on too!

I like the idea of more canter work also, like you have said i have done quite a lot of work on the trot and probably not enough on canter yet, i'd prob say less than 20% of his rehab work has been in canter so far (prob an overestimate too), so perhaps longer spells of canter etc would help!

Hope now the weather is getting better that i can get him out across some canter fields etc and perhaps a farm ride or two for prolonged canters
 
KatB said:
Luci, you need to do less ;) make sure you put poles down between the fences to make them look, and make them back themselves off.
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Now normally I would so agree but in this case it doesn't work with my green 6 year old and he scared himself. However and oddly enough, when he was set up for a straight upright, no placing poles and quite big, he sorted it out for himself. Agree with TS about working in canter as well!
 
Luci07 said:
Now normally I would so agree but in this case it doesn't work with my green 6 year old and he scared himself. However and oddly enough, when he was set up for a straight upright, no placing poles and quite big, he sorted it out for himself. Agree with TS about working in canter as well!
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I'm with you, some horses just don't back off and let the grid work them properly... if they get into their head that going through it much stronger/faster is the answer, then of course you have to do quite a lot of little corrections in the middle to avoid it getting worse when they run themselves into trouble, imho! Poles on the floor don't necessarily back them off either, they can just be seen as adding to the difficulty by some horses, I've found.
 
Poles before and after jumps have worked in the past for him to make him use his shoulders more, im guessing this must in effect help him engage the back end too.

interesting to see what works for some and not others, one thing for sure he doesnt get strong into his jumps/over the jumps/ landing as he just doesnt do STRONG! lol
 
A great exercise that has helped my boys canter is rein back to canter, it really gets them sitting on there hocks, do lots of them on a circle. It can take it out of them at first though so introduce gradually :)
 
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