Dressage in canter?

[qwerty]

What sort of moves can you do in canter?
What level would you say you had to be do atempt it?

[Wally]

Get a good working canter before you attempt any fancy things!

But you can perform all sorts of stuff in canter, if the horse knows what he is doing it's easy, trying to teach a horse these things is the difficult bit!

Until you and the horse can collect the canter up the move advanced moves will be out of reach.

[intouch]

Can you do walk to canter? That's a good one to impress with. Or "simple change", canter a half circle, start to change the rein across the diagonal then a few strides of walk through trot, and back to canter on the other leg. These should help to develop the canter which, as Wally says, needs to be a good strong but controlled working canter. Putting a few poles on a circle and controlling the strides between them could be useful, too.

[Bootyfulcobs]

surely, it's best to start the movements in walk, where you can get used to thier rhtym(sp?) and the way the horse moves, aids etc. and then when your canter is well established and controlled, you can move on to doing the movements in this gait. It makes sense, so that you can take things slowly, so by the time your cantering well, the aids for movements will be the only thing you need think of:p

[qwerty]

I can do halt to canter.
Been doing thinks like leg yeilds, shoulder inn's etc on trot for a while.
I feel happy with my canter on Jappy but not so much on Shirron because he can get a bit carried away!

[~alison~*]

After you have the working canter established, the next goal should be referring to suspension. The horse must have a good amount of suspension (when all 4 feet are off ground) because the time of suspension is when the horse changes his lead, for example. To create more suspension, establish a working canter and as your seat moves forward, your outside leg comes on (in most cases) and you send the horse forward into a supporting outside rein. The seat is the primary concern though. There's really no sense in trying to explain how to create more suspension, you just have to think it. That may seem ignorant, but if you are thinking "more suspension" , and you start to use your seat in an upward, kind of lifting way, your horse will follow that. Your horse will eventually begin to accept the bit more, have more "jump" in his canter, and come under himself more.

[myEllie]

My horse jumps into the canter although not in the most beautiful way. She can go from halt to canter and canter to trot. She does wonderul flying changes. She collects beautifully and is very good at the extension. We can even do a canter pirouette. It is not just for dressage, all horses need to be able to do these things, well maybe not the pirouette, but everything else. My horse is a jumper, well hunter, and all of these things help her going around a course.

[qwerty]

Today I did 20m circles in canter on Jappy and a flying change!
I am very proud of myself. It started off a little..well...lets just say...not the best and then he started listening to me and he was beautifully collected and WOW!!!:D

[floppy]

i think the greatest move in canter is continuous flying lead changes down the arena. Also..what do you call them in english???where the horses back legs remain put and you canter round in a circle with the front legs.
I use to ride a ladies horse in my dressage lessons last year who could do all that and she taught me how to do them all. It was great fun but then she moved away and there werent any other advanced horses that i could do it on. My cousins horse is learnign to do them now :)

[qwerty]

I don't really understand what you meen! In my head I just see a horse dragging it's hind feet!!! :p

[Sue Carnell]

Hi Floppy,

Continuous flying lead changes in canter are called 'one-time changes', where the horse changes his lead on each stride. What you describe about the hind legs staying put and the horse cantering around with his fore-legs would be a western riding 'spin' and not dressage. If you mean cantering around on the spot, his hindlegs cantering as well as the forelegs, that would be canter pirouette and would be dressage.

A rider can do pretty much everything in canter that they do in any other pace, though some horses find shoulder-in in canter very difficult and some trainers say it's impossible, or incorrect and shouldn't be used. A horse can even do rein-back in canter, but I wouldn't recommend it on the whole, it's thought more 'circus' than useful. :)

Sue Carnell
sue@eclipse.co.uk

[Sue Carnell]

To watch video of the western spin so that you can see the difference between that and pirouette in dressage, go to:
http://saddletude.com/

click on video and then westernvid, followed by Dell Hendricks western reining, or Bryant Pace western reining. You'll need quicktime iirc.

The first time I saw spins in reining on tv I was absolutely astounded. I didn't know horses could do that!

Sue Carnell
sue@eclipse.co.uk

[qwerty]

When a horse does rein back is it tequnicaly in trot (without the period of suspension!)?

[floppy]

thanks sue, that is what i meant..i have never ridden a sophisticated western horse so i wasnt doing no spinning :D
pirouette was the word i was looking for. :)
i have this little illusion of a horse in my head doing a pirouette but i can tell i will never make a riding instructor because i cant explain things to other people i just know what i am doing by feeling it.
:rolleyes:

[Wally]

Ringo gave me a few one time flying changes, bless him, I didn't want them, all I wanted was my stirrup back:D :D

[Lgd]

A reasonable guide as to when the horse should be able to do things in canter are the BD tests. Collection starts in Elementary and increase with each grade and most of the 'fancy work' requires collection to be correct. Rough guide as to when they first appear:

Prelim - working canter, 20 metre circles
Novice - working canter, 15 metre circles, counter canter, a few steps of medium canter
Elementary - collected canter, 8 metre circles, medium canter, simple changes with trot permitted on downward transition. Halt to canter, walk to canter. Rein back then canter depart
Medium - half pass, simple change no trot steps allowed, extended canter. Canter to halt.
Advanced Medium - single flying changes
Prix St George - half pirouette, 3 and 4 tempi changes, single counter change of hand in half pass
Inter I - 2 tempi changes, multiple counter changes in half pass
Inter II - 1 tempi changes (9), full pirouette
Grand Prix - 1 tempi changes (15)

I've probably missed some out but that is just a quick think as I don't have test sheets with me. Most horses wil be working one or two levels higher at home than that at which they are actually competing.