Wibbly Wobbly Heavy Cob youngster, working on canter?!

tobiano1984

tobiano1984

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I have a lovely warmcob, he's only 15hh and looks like a carthorse but moves so beautifully - very soft mouthed, massive movement, honestly feels like 17hh warmblood (but with a major cob attitude). We've been coming on leaps and bounds this year, he's just turned 5 and has been out to a couple of Intro dressage comps getting in the 60s and placed, with comments along the lines of him being promising and stunning but having a bit of attitude and being unbalanced.

Anyway, whilst his walk and trot are superb, his canter is still a work in progress. 6 months ago it was horrific, I could barely sit it, and it was like a camel crossed with a jelly. Over the last few months we've done little bits of schooling but mostly lots of hacking and it's improved to the extent that we can now do more than one lap of our 25x50 school - albeit not in great style. Generally his issue is I think common with a lot of heavy cob types, in that he doesn't quite know where his feet are and in canter his back legs have a mind of their own. The osteopath said he's got loose stifles, and should grow out of this, so I'm very mindful of not doing too much and damaging him, and she said to avoid lots of circles in canter. When I ask for canter he's very enthusiastic and flings himself into it, but a few strides in starts to wobble and we start to feel like an out of control freight train. My instructor is quite keen to get him going round and round but she is used to fancy warmblood types and he really struggles with it.

Just wondering if anyone else has had similar experiences with chunky cobs/heavy types and how it progressed/what you did with them? I'm just very wary of pushing him too much and damaging him, but then also want to do what I can to help him strengthen up. But don't really understand whether it's that he needs to build up strength and muscles, or it's just a waiting game for ligaments/tendons/joints etc to harden up with age. He is hyper flexible (does a lot of goose-stepping around the field with his knees up by his ears) I should add that he also can't jump very well (only done up to 2ft ish, and he tends to go in with great gusto, go to leap and then stop half way and knock it down)

Thanks in advance for any pearls of wisdom or anecdotes!
 
No pearls of wisdom but I expect my little fell gelding to be like this - he is 3 and any kind of brainwork makes his legs so tired he can't walk straight! I'm not even thinking of riding him until he's at least 5 because I just don't think he will be ready to think, move and carry a rider all at once. Maybe he just needs to grow up and learn how to balance in the 2 paces he is good at before progressing to more complicated stuff like canter? After all, there's no rush is there?
I am also doing lots of groundwork over poles in the coming year to help with coordination and spatial awareness, so maybe some gridwork would help him find his body too? Inhand or ridden, even just in walk.
 
My fell struggled with balance in the canter for ages, I've found lunging in the Pessoa once a week has really helped to balance his canter, he is 9 though and fairly established but really struggles to balance in the canter.
 
Controlled hillwork might help his stifles.

I'd also canter him a little bit more but only for one or two strides, then bring him back down to trot. If you can figure out how many good strides he gets, do 3/4 of that.
 
Can you canter him uphill on hacks? If he can stretch out and really get going without having to worry about turning round corners, never mind circles, he will find out how to balance himself. However I do think that you need to take your osteopath's advice about his joints etc.
 
My horse was pretty shocking when he was young and learning to canter in a circle. I used to just let him "bowl along" cantering on hacks which he found relatively easy. When was in the school would get my weight up off his back whilst he was learning. He now has a fab canter.
 
Mine were maxi cobX and NF. They have great difficulty coming off their forehand and they get tired really easily. Most instructors ride warmblood/TB crosses which need lots of work with ponies and cobs by the time they have done the warm up they are pooped, half an hour is about enough. You have done all the things I would have done. My tricks are a nice steady balanced trot, instructors tend to want you to send them more forward which just makes them run on to their forehand, if it gets faster bring them back to walk and reset and start again. Get a complete circuit of the school balance before trying a circle and make the circle bigger, it will come but its going to take longer, have your own aims not what the instructors think he should be doing at his age. There are lots of things you can do at walk and trot and out hacking, and when you are schooling once they have done it move on, they are far cleverer than horses and will remember but start to play up if it starts hurting or they get tired
 
I had a very wobbly cob to school for someone - Suffolk xtb we think. We did masses of transitions in the school - mainly halt/walk/trot transitions and also a lot of pole work (including some baby grids) to help him build the strength to engage his hindquarters and also to encourage the right sort of impulsion. I did have to use some quite strong bits (including a Cambridge gag with two reins) as he was so powerful and could take off, but this improved once he learned to balance himself.
When he had learned a bit more (in his 6yo year) the thing that really helped him was going on masses of fun rides with more experienced, quiet horses - unless you've got very good hacking it's hard to find enough space for the sort of long canters where they learn to go forward and balance themselves. We're lucky to have lots of charity rides where there are long valleys with old turf and some gentle inclines and he learnt so much doing these. There were also masses of tiny XC jumps at some of them, which benefited his jumping far more than knocking over x-poles! Cobs jump better at speed, given the right space and ground conditions.
 
Thanks everyone, some great ideas that I will try! I need to do more transitions. His transitions are very good so I haven't had to work on them much, but can see now that it is more to help with his impulsion and engaging hindquarters. I will also try poles/raised poles as long as I have help on hand to rearrange them each time, as he seems to think trotting poles mean we need to tread on each pole - not between them! Ends up a bit like ice skating bambi...

Luckily he's got a super soft mouth and isn't at all strong (which is a relief since he has the neck of a Percheron). We've got a fun ride coming up soon, it's only 2 hour which will probably still finish him off!
 
PS here are some pics, schooling at home and at our 2nd Intro test. as you can see he steps way under, and then can't support himself! Plus trying to offer up a bit of a medium trot in an Intro..! He gets brownie points for enthusiasm at least :-)

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PPS had an excellent schooling session today using some of your suggestions above. We did lots of halt-walk-trot transitions, and some trotting poles with alternate raised ends which he was very good over. Also did lots of canter transitions, but only for 5-8 strides at a time, and doing canter to walk transitions seemed to really boost his confidence. Sometimes I think that the canter to trot worries him a bit as his legs flail everywhere, whereas doing an acute transition was much smoother, and then when I did canter to trot it was much more instant and no leg flailing. He was very pleased with himself too! Thanks everyone
 
Tons of transitions, and just simple time will help lots :)

I ride a 6 year old ID X who is a very similar build to yours, and a year ago he could barely canter at all. He had no transition, he just ran and fell on his head, and his actual canter was horrid.

It's taken him until this summer, but suddenly it all just came together one day and he is now starting to do some sideways stuff and walk to canters etc :)
 
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