I dont think my pony can canter....

hApPiNeSs

hApPiNeSs

& Sharman :)
Jun 28, 2004
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Back man came (as advised :D ) and said that she is sound, a little problem that he stretched out but nothing very serious.

However, she is still not cantering. I have never seen her canter in the field. She will gallop, but not canter

When I ride her, she is almost telepathic. I think trot, and she will trot. Think walk and she will walk. Same with turning.

It all goes terribly wrong when i ask for canter. I have to use a LOT of leg, sometimes even a firm nudge every stride. This is unusual for her. I stay relxed and dont tense up, but she sticks her head in the air and to one side, curls up, pokes her nose and skids around doing a 4 beat canter/gallop.

Is it possible she doesnt know how to canter? Or is that just silly? Am I too heavy for her to canter with me? I have tryed lunging/freeschooling but whenever I ask she trots very very fast, and then gallops.

i dont know what to do. TBH, i would be perfectly happy just walking and trotting, but this inability to canter is worrying me :(
 
Heya,

That is very unusual for a horse/pony not wanting to canter? I have been told (and believe on some sides) that canter is a very easy stride for a horse - just to skip along, until you ask for more lol..

Hmm, maybe you should lunge her on a line and when you ask for canter - even if she "gallops" just let her and see if she calms down? Hmm...

OR .. when you ride - you say its a four-beat canter? Some horses do have 4-beat canters .. but you could try going into canter (nudging required lol) and as soon as she does a stride just let lose (some slack - still in control) with the reins, and stop kicking, and say "canter" as she does and pat her and praise. when she comes back to trot make her work hard in the trot. Do circles and serpintines, weaving, turnon the forehands - challenge her. Then ask for canter again after a 'mini work out' - as soon as she canters lean forwards a TINY bit (to releave weight from her back), give a bit with the reins - just make is as comfy as possible. Again, if SHE breaks to trot, work her, if YOU ask, let her walk around praising :)

We are doing this with our girl - but she wont stop cantering lol! haha

good luck
 
I used to (20 years ago :eek: ) some times ride a horse called Max, who for some reason would not canter. He did have a very fast trot and while hacking out I could keep up with friends who were cantering on 13hh ponys.

Not much help for you I know and up until your post Max was the only horse I have come accross that would not canter.
 
i doubt your pony is actually "galloping" most horses need more than an arena to properly gallop.... is she just doing a disunited canter... best way to watch is to watch her in the field....

is your pony a youngster? are you asking for canter on a circle or on a bend, at first it may be eaiser to ask for canter on the long side so that if she feels unbalanced on a circle this may help....

tricky really, have you asked a trainer to look at her?
 
happiness

could it be that she is very unbalanced in canter ? if I remember right, horses would naturally conserve their energy so would only canter/gallop when beign chased - as such some may have wonderful natural balance. But my mum's Fell pony seems to have trot as his best natural pace.... well actually his BEST pace is "free walk on a long rein" :rolleyes: but after that, trot !

So - if it is a question of balance, there are things you can do to help. Both in terms of ground work and from on top. I know you have lessons - are you doing stuff like turn on forehand, leg yield and so on ?

You say you've tried lunging and free schooling. When you lunge, if you keep her going does she settle at all or just fall back to trot ? It may be that because you are concerned, you are not asking her often enough and hence not giving her the chance to work out how to do it ;)

If you are free schooling, you may need a smaller space (round pen rather than arena) to get her going enough to settle. If not, she will be a good girl and slow down every time the pressure comes off a little :p
 
when lunging she panics and has bolted across the field a couple of times. The area in which we free school is only 15x15 which is why i dont really want to free in there anymore because she will find it harder to balance herself. :rolleyes:

what kind of things can i do to make her more balanced - is it just transitions etc?

she leg yields perfectly in both walk and trot, and we have also even attempted some rather scruffy turns on the haunches :D

at the moment i am working on her general way of going - she desnt go onto the forehand as often now. However, she does tend to hollow her back a bit as you can see (sort of) from my avatar.

Would pole work in trot help? Maybe it would help her to co-ordinate her balance?

Please consider i havent got a school to work in so everything gets done in the only flat field on the farm - where she does tend to get a little hyper because of the size of it :rolleyes:
 
I used to ride a horse that didnt canter, she was from the gypseys and had only ever been taught the commands mean trot, trot faster, trot faster still, faster faster trot, scream if you want to go faster trot, never canter as they used her for trotting comps. Maybe if she bolts off and gets confused whilst being lunged and asked for it, she does not understand what you are asking for?
 
I think that a good idea would be to get a horsewisperer, even if u dont beleive in them, there like magic! I have seen one that has put a saddle on a wild horse and bein accepted to be ridden all in 30mins! How rare is that! Yeah so maybe you should see a horse wisperer person and see if its all in your horses mind
 
i believe in horse whisperers, but i dont think they will help in this case. Horse whisperers talk to horses in their 'own language' - mainly through establishing trust and becoming the leader.

However, I dont think he could 'tell' Happy to canter - I dont think it works like that.

Thankyou anyway :) :) :)
 
hApPiNeSs said:
when lunging she panics and has bolted across the field a couple of times. The area in which we free school is only 15x15 which is why i dont really want to free in there anymore because she will find it harder to balance herself. :rolleyes:

what kind of things can i do to make her more balanced - is it just transitions etc?

she leg yields perfectly in both walk and trot, and we have also even attempted some rather scruffy turns on the haunches :D

at the moment i am working on her general way of going - she desnt go onto the forehand as often now. However, she does tend to hollow her back a bit as you can see (sort of) from my avatar.

Would pole work in trot help? Maybe it would help her to co-ordinate her balance?

Please consider i havent got a school to work in so everything gets done in the only flat field on the farm - where she does tend to get a little hyper because of the size of it :rolleyes:
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yes, pole work in walk and trot will help. And raised poles as well. Anything you can do to help her activate hind leg, move her weight, become more co-ordinated - will all help. Try leg yield across the diagonal, and that will lead into "shoulder-fore" as well (leg yield along the long side but at an angle).

15x15 is probably ok for some short canter work. But obviously not long sessions.

if you do small jumps, does she canter away ever or always trot ?

(limited reply as I am actually in a phone meeting ! :rolleyes: )
 
Do you ride on grass? Pink finds canter really hard on the grass - she worries about slipping and will only canter in a straight line. However, if the ground is totally dry or put her in a sand school and she canters all day no-problem. If she feels unbalanced or not totally foot-sure, she's not going to canter. Unfortuantly there's not much you can do about it. She needs to pracise to find it easier, but she's obviously not willing to :rolleyes: . Pink's not shod so studs can't be used, but they might help if Happy's shod.
 
cvb - yes actually, after a jump she often canters a stride or two.

Will try some raised pole exercises me thinks :)

oh and just to add - sometimes when we do canter, she will drop right down in front, put her head down and stop, and kick her back legs a little. Not exactly a buck and definately not nasty.

pinkslady - she seems more confident on grass actually. mind you, the grass is quite short and i only ride on it when its dry :)
 
Happiness

there were some horses at the Mark Rashid clinic that were working on canter - its actually amazing that some horse's forget to breathe ! And they sort of gulp air instead. You need to get them soft enough and relaxed enough to start breathing - AND the rider needs to breathe as well or the horse won't ! :p

he commented that often these little bucks you get are merely cos the horse does not know where to take the energy - if they relax it all flows and stops being a problem.

Plus my mum's fell pony has a pretty appalling canter at the moment. The better the trot, the better the canter. A visiting instructor had me using shoulder fore before and after to help him. If you are riding in the field, if she offers a canter (e.g. after a jump) just see how long you can keep it. if that means bowling on a bit then don't worry too much at this stage. it may be that by trying to slow and balance her, she is relying too much on you rather than learning the self-carriage she needs.
 
Happiness

had a thought on the way to work this morning... have you tried walk to canter ??

sometimes it can be the two beat to three beat change that throws them and skipping trot can help them work out canter and then you go back to trot-canter.

I used to have a gymkhana pony so of course we did halt-canter without a thought. Then you try and do it as part of "dressage" and suddenly walk-canter is "advanced" and a big deal :eek:

I'm am not suggesting you will get a perfect walk-canter with no trot inbetween, but it may be that "trot on the way to canter" is not an issue.

Do you need some ideas how to try it or have you tried it already and it didn't help ?
 
in the school i can only get walk to canter on the right rein which is ciara's stiffer side although i can do trot to canter on the left rein. i have struggled quite a lot, and the one thing that fixes it (although I've drastically changed her diet) is constant regular exercise. as soon as she has a few weeks off it all goes wonky again.
 
Lucy

Thats one of the weird things about canter - how the stiffness of the horse affects the result.

because it is the outside hind that starts the stride, often the horse will be better in canter on what is normally their "worse" rein... because it is the hind that is stiff and what makes e.g. right rein circles hard then makes left lead canter hard !

What I have to work on with Fi (who has had back and hip issues so needs be helped to keep active behind) is that hind leg activity and also the lateral softness. She tends to get tense cos she worries and then we get all skew-whiff :rolleyes: Instructor recently suggested I work on walk pirouettes (and biiiig trot pirouettes) i.e. bum in - to help get the activity and so on that I needed.

I also found that I was asking with my inside leg on one rein, and outside on the other i.e. using my "strong" leg in both cases. On the right rein this then meant I pretty much pushed her crooked with my outside leg, which hardly made life any easier for her :rolleyes: So I've had to "reconnect" with my weak leg and make it do some work :p
 
its horrible weather so i wont be riding tonight :mad:

but i have been looking in old your horse mags and have found some good t-team exercises that we can do with raised poles. i think i will do these tonight in-hand, so we can do it in waterproofs!!! :D
 
I don't know how old/experianced Happy is but Bo couldn't canter for over a year when he was first backed, he could do fine in the field but as soon as someone was on his back he struggled, it also took him ages to learn on the lunge.

We tried loads, raised poles, a small jump to get it going, and all sorts, he got it in the end, he just took a while to get strong enough to hold it together properly :p

Best of luck

J x
 
hApPiNeSs said:
when lunging she panics and has bolted across the field a couple of times. The area in which we free school is only 15x15 which is why i dont really want to free in there anymore because she will find it harder to balance herself. :rolleyes:

what kind of things can i do to make her more balanced - is it just transitions etc?
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I does sound like a balance issue. Some horses get scared when they feel unbalanced and try to solve the issue by going faster - which is what it sounds like is happening with the lunging!

You already have some good suggestions in previous comments. To that I'll add - Yes! Transistions. And only canter very briefly each time you ask for it.
Whether under saddle, on the lunge, or in the small free lunge space - ask for the canter transition, only let her canter maybe three strides at most, then back down to trot, walk, or even halt. Work on it until she really does only do that 3 strides at most before coming back. At first she may well take several strides to get the down transition - keep working on it each time you work her. ( Eventually she'll get it right, it may take several work sessions). You'll have to decide for yourself how many repetitions of trying is right in each individual work session - it'll depend on her attitude, if she seems to be tiring, etc., but defintiely do several reps of this workout each time. Both the up and the down transiton of it will help her build the strength she needs to balance properly in canter.
The other thing to work on in preparation for this is making sure she's prompt about being obedient to requests for down transitions at the otjher gaits. It'll make the exercise go much better and the down transitions themselves will teach her to rebalance herself as well as building strength.

I'd suggest trying lunging her on the line in the free lunge space for this exercise - you'll be able to control her down transtions better, and the small space will keep her from being inclined (or able) to take off in a panic when she feels unbalanced.
 
do you ride and freeschool in the same place? 15 x 15 is very small for teaching canter, or even a slightly unbalanced one. is she the same on hacks? will she follow another horse?
if she will, then the first thing i'd do would be to go out, find a long straight track, and get the other horse to canter ahead, while you hover in 2-point and just let her canter in her own time. when she is in canter, loads of praise and repeat 'canter! good girl!' for the duration, to start teaching voice commands for it. when she can go consistently and easily into canter on a straight line, then start collecting it up and balancing it, and then move to the school and hard stuff like bending.

it can be a mental block as well, if they find it difficult - if canter transitions are stressful because 1) she finds it hard to canter, and 2) because it involves a lot of leg and voice and kerfuffle and she knows you are asking something she finds hard, then she will tense up and lose her brain beforehand, knowing something bad is coming up, and make it all ten times worse.
it's a bit like you panicking because a test is coming up at school that you'r;e not sure about - the more you worry about it beforehand, the harder it is to remember anything at all, whereas if you are calm, you can remember what you do know and do better.

if you can get the pressure off her and let her do it in her own time, then it is likely to come easier.
her reaction to cantering is not normal for a horse with no physical or mental issues about it, who has been taught to canter properly.
 
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