Why would a horse disunite?

Wonder if any of you can give me some advice? If a horse is disuniting in canter; does it generally mean that there is an underlying medical condition for it; or can it be from lack of suppliness or balance? If the latter can anyone recommend any good from the ground exercises that would improve this?

Thanks
 
Lack of balance.

Is this a young horse/old horse?

does he break from a good canter to a disunited canter? If so there may be more to investigate, it would be more normal that he strikes off disunited or changes in front on a turn, rather than just changing to disunited from a true canter.
 
Horse is 13 now but had a bad time last year. KS op and then a cattle grid accident, so just coming back into work. She can establish a nice canter and I don't see any disuniting when she's in the pessoa; but I've been free reining her the last couple of times, just to watch what she does naturally by herself. I don't have a truly level surface to do this on and it seems to happen when she's going onto a slight downhill part. Her back legs start to do a shorter stride, almost a bunny hop, then we get a bit of a buck then occasionally a disunite, but she does right herself by a flying change within a stride or two! I have also noticed that she seems to be struggling to hold her pace in trot when going down this bit of a slope. Uphill she works beautifully. I'm tempted to keep free reining her for a while in her paces to see if she sorts herself out. I haven't really tried it ridden yet as she's not strong enough yet to do canter with me on her back. Her trot once she has warmed up is lovely tho!
 
We had this with our loan pony.Basically she hadnt done much canter work and being welsh cob her prefered motion was trot.It takes a while if they are coming back into work to get balance and rythm.This horse was ten and had not done any serious work before but after lots of schooling has a really established canter now.Sounds like you are on the right road but if you are still unsure if he/she is sound ask your vet or a instructor to watch .
 
Thanks, she really hasn't done any free cantering for about a year now and before that she had such a bad back her canter was always terrible, so I guess she just needs to build her confidence. She is definately sound, it's just she seems to go to pieces when she's in canter unless she's held together by a pessoa or two lunge lines. She has always been better with a rider holding her together on her back than working free on her own. I'll keep working her free in the round pen for another couple of weeks and see if she can sort it out in her head. If I don't see an improvement then I'll get the vet to take a look before my claim closes on my insurance.
 
At the end of last year my horse started being unable to canter on the right rein without missing a stride / disuniting. After lots of investigations was diagnosed with kissing spines & has just had steroid injections in back & now physio. He can now canter fine on the lunge and am just waiting to see if he is able to canter when ridden.
Anyway just thought your problem maybe could be related to the KS. As she's had the op there won't be any pain but maybe she is anticipating pain & just needs to learn that it won't hurt any more?
 
TBH I'm more concerned that it maybe something she's done after going thru the cattle grid. She was fine after her KS op and apart from severe lacerations after going thru the cattle grid there didn't seem to be any other damage (which everyone, including vet was amazed at). Anyway it's very early days and I have only been onboard about 5 times now and doing ground work inbetween; without much canter (just reintroduced that recently) - so maybe I'm just expecting too much. It's just that inbetween the KS op and the cattle grid she didn't disunite once when working in pessoa and looked great. She doesn't look so great anymore, but her legs are still open and she does have a lot of scarring so maybe I just need to be a bit more patient while she learns that her back legs and everything can extend. Probably me just overreacting, but I'd hate to get this far for it all to go wrong again.
 
You could also try working her over ground poles to see what reaction you get, both trot poles, and canter poles, to see if she breaks/disunites over the poles.
Sounds like she is just very weak behind, and on going down that slope, she needed to balance behind, and couldn't hold it on her weaker back leg.
If that's the case, lots of basic work, on the lunge, and over ground poles will build up the muscles, but do be conscious of using the Pessoa too much too soon.
 
My horse disunites in canter when his pelvis is unlevel. I always know I need to get the McTimoney lady out if he disunites. She does his back and he's fine afterwards
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Thanks for I'm not using the pessoa now, just occassionally I much prefer her to do things naturally to find her own carriage. Will try the poles and canter poles to see if this helps, if not I'll have a word with the vet and see if I can get my physio to have a look. I did wonder about her pelvis after her struggle to get out of the grid, so might be worth getting her checked. Thanks
 
The only other consideration is her breed.Cobs take that little bit longer to balance in canter my daughters is a welsh cob but she is now do flying changes we just gave her a bit more time.
 
Hi soz her breed is she's an Irish horse - not cob, she was bred to race but didn't make the cut and was imported from Ireland at the age of 3 in foal. I've had her since she was 5.
 
Dont know if this will help but one of our young riding school ponies used to go disunited in canter, i now ride her with my stirrups a hole shorter and she always goes well for me as my leg stays on her sides.
 
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