From: Deb
Hi Jessica!
I, too, am one of your loyal and extremely appreciative on-line "students" who has cancelled most of my horse magazine subscriptions ( I will be sending a donation to your network). You are wonderful!
I have a five year old Arabian mare who I have trained all by myself since I got her as a yearling. We are doing great. I haven't cantered on her yet, but we have gone on short trailrides alone (just at the walk and a bit of trotting), and she has pretty good balance at the trot on circles. I'm wondering what preparations I should make with her prior to cantering. I've read that you should teach her the turn on the forehand first, which I have started to do. She's starting to understand the idea of moving her haunches away from my leg.
How do I know when she is ready to canter with me on her back? I've also read that she should be comfortable with the sitting trot first, which makes sense to me but she has a very lofty, springy trot which I find difficult to post to, let alone sit to. When she trots she has really long moments of suspension and I feel like I'm posting too high and in slow motion! If I get her going really forward it's better, but I haven't tried to sit to her trot yet. She'll even trot on the spot for a few seconds before coming to a halt sometimes (I can't remember the Dressage term for that). She's very supple. Any advice you can offer about sitting the trot on her would be very much appreciated as well!
How do I teach her the leg commands for canter and what's the best and safest way to go into a canter for the very first time? If she doesn't understand something right a way she gets angry so I want to do everything I can to make it easy for her. I'm always very gentle and patient with her. She knows her voice commands really well and I talk to her almost constantly.
Thank you for being so helpful to us all.
Yours very sincerely,
Debbie:)
That first canter is always exciting, especially when you've had a horse since it was a foal and trained it yourself.
Horses become more excited as they go faster. Unbalanced canters tend to be fast, and horses that lack the muscular strength to canter easily will tend to fall into a fast, unbalanced canter. Horses enjoy cantering, and your first canter will be much more fun for both of you if your mare is strong enough and balanced enough to be able to canter IN balance.
As your horse gets stronger and more balanced, she may offer a canter all by herself -- when you come to a slight upward slope on a trail, for instance. If this happens, and you're balanced and ready to go with her, just go along, keep your legs ON, and tell her what she's doing ("can-TER") so that she'll understand that it's something you actually like and want her to do, and so that she'll associate the word with the action.
The best and safest way to canter for the first time is to do it in a place where you feel safe and the horse feels secure. A familiar arena with good footing is ideal: the fact that it's enclosed means that you'll both be be able to stay relaxed and unworried.
It's always easier if the horse has done enough work on the longe to understand and respond reliably to your voice. A horse that rocks into a smooth canter on the longe whenever you say "and... canTER" will be able to offer the same transition under saddle. Your mare knows your voice and knows the words, and this will make that first transition much easier.
If your mare has a good walk and trot, can balance well on circles and through changes of direction at the trot, and can offer a longer or shorter walk and longer or shorter trot in response to your aids, the canter shouldn't present any problems.
The sitting trot is really a separate issue -- for your present purpose, you only need to be able to sit for one or two strides of trot before the canter. In general, though, when you begin to do sitting trot, here are some guidelines: The number of strides you can sit will depend on the horse's comfort level and its ability to keep its back lifted and swinging. If you sit two steps and feel the horse's back stiffen and drop, start posting again IMMEDIATELY. Teach yourself to feel that tiny hesitation just before the horse's back stiffens, and get in the habit of posting as soon as you feel that tiny hesitation. Don't worry if you find yourself trotting a 20m circle, or around the arena, and doing much more posting than sitting -- that's not a problem, how it starts. The formula for learning sitting trot is simple: Post until you feel the horse trotting smoothly in a strong, regular rhythm and at its best tempo. Keep posting until you feel the horse's back lift and begin to swing. Then, and only then, do you sit -- and you sit JUST as long as the horse's rhythm and tempo remain unchanged, and as long as the horse's back remains lifted and swinging. When you sit, keep weight in your thighs as well as your seatbones, and be ready to resume posting instantly if the horse slows or hesitates. What you are trying to do is to show the horse that it can continue comfortably in a good trot whether you are posting or sitting -- and to show the horse this, you have to make it true. ;-) In the early stages, this means doing much, much more posting than sitting. But be patient, because as the horse gains strength and confidence it will be able to stay relaxed and forward while you sit for two strides, then three, then four, and so on.... eventually you'll just use your own good judgement and sit for two or five or ten strides -- the horse will tell you how many are comfortable, and you will respond by posting BEFORE the horse becomes uncomfortable with you sitting. In this way, the horse will NEVER learn to react defensively by dropping its back as soon as you sit...
As for the canter, take it slowly and keep breathing. ;-) There are two ways a horse can pick up a canter: one is to trot faster and faster until it falls into a canter; the other is to use the hindquarters to "power" or "jump" into the canter. The second way is the way you're going to want to do it, but while your mare is learning to canter under saddle, accept ANY canter and tell her how pleased you are. ;-)
If your mare makes the transition to canter but doesn't offer the correct lead, don't worry about it, and above all, don't bring her back to a trot, and don't say "NO." At this point, she is learning to canter when you ask for canter, and the lead isn't as important as the gait itself. When you ask for a canter and she canters, she needs praise, and she needs to be allowed to canter for at least eight or ten or twelve strides, so that she will know that you really DID want her to canter. If you are too concerned with the lead, and you try to correct that within a few strides, she won't think "Oh dear, I cantered on the wrong lead", she'll think "Ooops, I guess I wasn't supposed to canter". So let her roll on down the long side of the arena, tell her she's a good girl, and worry about leads later. If she's balanced and supple, this won't be much of a problem anyway, especially if, at first, you always ask for the canter in the corner on the short side of the arena, and then canter down the long side. Even if your mare picks up the wrong lead, you can let her canter down the long side before you ask her for a trot; on a straight line, it won't present a problem of balance, and you can trot before you reach the corner, which is where being on the wrong lead could cause her to scramble around the short side of the arena. Like everything else in riding and training, it's all about PREPARATION. Some riders get unduly focused on execution -- they would find it all much easier if they would remember to SET IT UP AND LET IT HAPPEN.
Put your mare in the best position to pick up the canter, easily and calmly, from a round, energetic, balanced trot. As you come to the second corner of the short side of the arena, sit a couple of strides, look UP, put your outside leg back a hand's width, and squeeze and then RELAX your inside rein as you say "and..can-TER!". Ask, and then give her a chance to respond.
If she trots faster instead of cantering, don't keep pushing until she falls into the canter. Instead, focus on getting the trot the way you want it, circle, and when she's balanced and energetic and round, set her up for the canter again and ask again.
When you have the canter, sit up, stay tall, let your arms follow the movement of her head and neck, and talk to your mare. If you can talk to her in the rhythm of the gait, so much the better -- praise her, and tell her what she's doing, just the way you did when she first cantered on the longe. Tell her "can-TER, can-TER, can-TER..." and let your lower back move with the saddle. Even at this very early stage, be careful to encourage her forward into a soft elastic contact -- not into a fixed or a pulling hand.
Don't spend too much time working on turns on the forehand. ;-) It's a useful exercise to teach a horse to move away from the leg, and it's useful for opening and closing gates from horseback. But you do NOT want your horse to get into the habit of shifting its haunches every time you put your leg back. A cantering horse should be straight -- not carrying its haunches to the inside. This will cause problems later when you want more sophisticated responses from the horse. Instead, think in terms of cantering from a shoulder-fore position, with the horse very slightly bent, looking to the inside, and with the forehand very slightly to the inside.
Once you've both learned what to expect and how it feels, it will be so easy that you'll wonder why you were ever worried about it. ;-) Just prepare your horse well, set her up for the canter, and be patient while she learns what you want her to do. Keep smiling, keep breathing, and remember you do it for fun!
Jessica
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