How To Canter A Horse

[Bayou]

Alright my instructor Jackie is teaching me to canter, I can walk, post the trot and sit the trot with stirrups and both without stirrups. But she s basically teaching me to stop him, trn his head to the rail and kick him with both heels. But I have a habit of pulling back on the reins when he starts to canter in order to balance. Two questions,

1.) Does anyone have a more refined signal that seems to work

2.) How can I learn not to pull back when he starts to canter

Thanks

[horseygirl123]

I think maybe what might help you is to canter on the lunge first, get a feel of how it feels, without having to worry about steering etc too and also the RI can get the horse to canter and all you need to do is hold onto the saddle and learn to absorb the movement with nice loose reins so you dont pull on the horses mouth
Once you've mastered that then you can think about getting the horse into canter yourself ;)

[Bayou]

I've cantered before and done great but this particular horse is hard to get into a canter, and we don't use lunge lines at our barn but thanks anyway

[noodle]

I was asking the same things a few months ago.
I found holding the saddle for 2 lessons worked well,m my RI put a bit of paper under my bum and told me not to loose it, IT WORKED!
My only problem was finding the right horse to learn to canter on because if the trot got to fast and bouncy i kept rising.

Good luck, its great when you can do it, although I can only canter on 1 RS horse still.
NOodle

[Bayou]

Thanks for the help, I can canter on Tika, Package and Bayou now. The only thing with Bayou is that he has a long stride for his canter and a really bouncey trot.