Walk to canter - am I expecting too much?

[Snowy Celandine]

I don't do it very often but when I ask my pony to go from walk (or halt) to canter in a schooling session, she gets really wound up. She's ok doing it the first time but then she anticipates being asked to do it again and bounces round until I ask her to walk on a long rein and stretch down. When she's calmed down I can ask for the movement again on the other rein (if I choose to) but then she gets wound up again, not in a bad way but she just seems to want to bounce about.

Not sure if I'm describing the problem very well (or if it is actually a problem at all as I am a novice) but I thought I'd ask anyway to see what people think. I am not sure whether to stop asking pony to do this from time to time or whether to ask more often so that she realises that it's not a big deal. We don't jump, but if we did, she'd have to master the walk canter transition.

 

[Booboos]

I would be tempted to ask more often, but not ask until she relaxes. If you need to give her a long rein to relax, then pick it up again and ask until she gets bored of the whole thing. If she anticipates, just quietly bring her back to walk and ask again until she listens to you.

Don't know about halt to canter I am afraid that is a bit beyond us, but I imagine if you relax her in the walk to canter she might be calmer for the halt to canter.

 

[Snowy Celandine]

Thanks Booboos. I think that you might well be right and I need to ask her to do a couple of walk to canters and get her to remain calm before asking for halt to canter. I've just rung my instructor and booked a lesson for Friday so I will ask her advice then. We have done it in a lesson before and my instructor said that pony was 'getting her knickers in a twist' over it and we persevered and she did improve by the end of the session.