canter from the walk

[Shelly_D]

Hi everyone! I'm looking for some advice on how to get my horse to go from a walk straight into the canter. What has worked for any of you?

[floppy]

with my horse i just did lots of transitions. from walk to trot, trot to walk, trot to canter canter to trot.....canter to walk etc. Then every so often i tried out from a corner to ask for canter from a walk. She isnt too hot in the riding arena but out riding she will go striahg tinto canter from almost a standstill.

[AmandaW]

Hello,

This is the way I have been taught:-
I find you first need a nice active walk. Not just a fast walk. It always helps me to do some walk to halt and trot to halt transitions first. Gets the horse awake , listening and off the forehand. Once your walk is nice and balanced and active just give a little 'half halt' and then apply the canter aids. With the some of the horses I ride, the first time you ask you may get a couple of strides of trot before the canter, but they soon twig what you want.

I don't know, last night I was getting some rather alarming walk to gallop transitions (unasked for I have to say)!!! This Spring thing is just so exciting :rolleyes:

Have fun

Amanda

[Equitating]

Hi Shelly, glad to see you're back.

It helped a lot that my mare knows the voice command for canter when we first worked on walk-canter transitions. Do you lunge? I did a lot of ground work with voice commands first and it made it fairly easy from the saddle. Now Fresca will canter with just the leg/seat aid.