Collected Canter

[toohorsemad]

Ok I am struggling to get this with my horse as he is lazy and cold and once you use half halts he breaks into trot! Help! What am I doing wrong?

[toohorsemad]

Anyone?

[julesandjoy]

Does he understand and listen to your leg? Does he know that 'leg on' means 'forward'?
Are you remembering to keep your leg on during half-halts?
Do you have somone, like a trainer, who could watch you in person and give a helpful critique? sylvia

[toohorsemad]

I have an RI and I can't get it in my lesson! I can do a lenghten canter but not a shortern one! I think he could be legs on after half halt but I'm not sure!

[dressage1anja]

:p Julesandjoy....,..
im not trying to argue.. please donnot get me wrong.. when you said that leg on means forward, that is not completley true, i think you know what it means... but your an experienced enough rider to tell this girl that leg on means forward, and she might mean increase speed of trot..

to question-

when you half halt are you making sure that your legs are on and consistantly in a proper place? dont be affraid to use the crop once and a while to make sure he is listening to your leg.. but remember.. crops should ONLY be used if you put leg on, so if you put leg on and he isnt responding.. donnot just use the stick.. use your legs at the same time as you use your stick. also.. Leg, can mean increase your speed if you use it but are not doing it with specific aids.. also it can mean move away from or lift and carry more. To get it to lift and carry more, and to reach to the connection, make sure you close your hand when using the leg, that is the rein on the same side as the leg, but make sure he is tuned to your leg:) that is basically what i believe might be wrong...

happy to help-
Jaclyn

[toohorsemad]

When I think he's coming into a shorter canter he is breaking into trot! He does that quite often! Any ideas or exercises we could use?

[Pickles]

I think I would try using a "gentler" aid to ask him to come more together, so try to half halt more softly and if he comes together a little bit this is a step in the right direction.

One exercie my instructor has me practicing at the moment is getting the canter established and then putting him onto a 20m circle. Once settled on the cirlce we try to bring the circle down in size to about 5m but you could pick a suitable size for your horses level of training.

Circling in and out forces the horse to use his hocks properly and makes the canter lighter.

[toohorsemad]

So kind of make a spiral?

[andreaB]

i think you say alot in your opening line of this topic

'he is lazy'

you are really going to struggle to collect up a lazy canter

it may well be the case that you need to work on the quality & impulsion of the canter before starting to ask for collected strides

[Lindsayanne]

I
m still just learning all this two. But I was taught to never "pull him back" into collection with the brilde or even half halts, but to "ride him up into" the bridle and the 'wall' of the bridle creates a better looking and more natural collection.

[toohorsemad]

I am working on the quality of the canter on the lunge which is really helping! Thanks for the advice everyone!

[Jaimee]

Have you considered that this horse might not be strong enough to produce the collected canter to the degree you are asking for??
It requires quite a lot of strength from the hindquarters, as the horse must jump under his body more to lift his forehand. This takes quite a lot of conditioning. I assume you know this already and thought he was prepared long enough, but maybe he needs more work on muscling than you thought?

If you jump you coud try some grids? A series of low jumps are best. Start with maybe three in a row and work your way up to more. they dont need to get high, just add jumps and vary distances. A good exercise is a grid on a circle or curve, tricky to set up but really builds their butt muscles.

If you dont jump I would suggest you do heaps and heaps of transitions. Canter, trot, canter , trot... over and over and allow different numbers of canter strides each time. Count them, go 1, 2, 3, 4.... say 8 the first time then 4. Until you can control him to do one or two strides and then trot again, and canter again after. I absolutely gaurantee that if you can do that exercise well your horse will do a nice collected canter. Every time he does a correct downward transition he must collect temporarily to do it and this builds him up. Also he'll be super sharp on the aids.

[toohorsemad]

Thanks a million! That sounds like good advice! Although Vic is on a break a the moment!