Unbalanced in canter & bucking

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A1fie

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The horse I share has started bucking in canter on the right rein, just generally little ones but when I rode her she followed with 5 massive ones and had me off.

The saddler came at the weekend and re-adjusted her saddle, it is a wow one and quite newish, and an instructor schooled her a couple of days later when she again did a couple of little bucks.

The instructor seemed to think that she is doing it when she or the rider get a bit unbalanced.

Now the problem for me is that my balance isn't very good yet, I'm not a very experienced rider. So how can I keep my balance and stop her getting unbalanced? She only does it in canter on the right rein. It's not helped because she tends to run into the canter and she is quite short and stiff which doesn't help with my balance at all.

Any suggestions gratefully received!
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if she is quite short and stiff, i'd be having a bit of a think about why she is bucking...

Could be pain (hock/back trouble can make them buck), could be that the rider is pushing her onto the forehand, could be excitement... the list is endless. Has she seen a vet/physio recently?

I'd get this checked first before working on suppleness and balance in trot and adding canters down the long sides with trot on the short sides of the school.
 
How old is the horse? sometimes young unbalanced horses go through this stage when learning to canter but you have done the right thing in having the saddle checked.

However it could be because the horse is finding it more difficult on that particular rein, so its extra hard work and he could be bucking to avoid this, also there may be some pain somewhere in his muscles...could be anywhere from the neck down through his back, have you had the horse checked out by the a vet and had a back person out to rule out any possible reasons for his behaviour? even having his teeth checked just to make sure as well.

Do the horse buck when you are not riding it...like on the lunge?
 
Hi orangeempire - she does go heavily on the forehand. I don't know how to get her using her back end more.

It is difficult as she is not mine, I just share her. She has never done much schooling, she was just used for hacking.

I don't think it is excitement, she hates having lessons and being in the school and stomps around with her ears back and pulling awful faces!! She is happy enough going out for hacks and can canter in a straight line with no obvious problems.

Kenzo she is nearly 15. She saw the saddler a few days ago. He is also a physio and said she is ok. If she was mine I would make sure she had regular physio but all I can do is gently suggest it to the owner.
 
In that case she's probably just very stiff from always bumbling along as she likes. I'd be doing lots of suppling exercises with her when you ride. You can do lots of walk to trot transitions to help her use her bum more, and also do some 20m circles where you ask for inside and then outside bend on each circuit. Once she is happy with that, ask her to spiral in off your outside leg (down to a 10m circle) and then out off your inside leg. This can be done in walk and trot.

Start gently and gradually ask more of her each time you ride. this should help her loosen up, and if she really struggles you have more information to back up your suggestion to the owner that she gets looked at by a vet.

As I said earlier, canter down the long sides going back to trot for the short side, then canter again down the long side... This will help her and you get balanced without having to do corners. Once you can do this start cantering round the first corner before going back to trot, then the next corner, before eventually being able to do a full circuit.

As she's not a big fan of schooling, keep your sessions short (10-15mins) and maybe go for a nice hack afterwards to let her unwind. You can ask her to look left and right on your hacks too to really help her loosen up.

You can also do carrot stretches left and right and down to help loosen her up. Both my horses do these daily and it makes a huge difference to their general flexibility.

Hope this epic essay helps!!
 
Personally I would get a good physio out to check her all over. WOW saddles are also different to normal flocked saddles so it may take her a while to get used to that. If you are given all clear by physio then you can start doing some exercises like those above. If this were my horse, that is what I would do anyway, Good luck.
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