Free Walk on a long rein and canter circles.
- Thread starter Sophie..*
- Start date
Canter circles, im working with a five yr old cob on these! Hes fab, already doing leg yeild, shoulder fore, turns on the forehand back habd ect... anyway
You need to think abut using you leg ALOT more than your riens, its quite easy to half halt with out meaning to, also to see if its you or your horse, ask someone whos done alot ao dresage to have a little sit on him
You need to think abut using you leg ALOT more than your riens, its quite easy to half halt with out meaning to, also to see if its you or your horse, ask someone whos done alot ao dresage to have a little sit on him
my horse also took a long time to learn to stretch into the free walk on a long rein. ride forward with your seat and keep a contact on the reins but gradually make it lighter so your horse takes the contact forward. i often found lightly scratching the wither with a finger encourages them to stretch. when you re-collect, shorten your reins but keep them forward then you gradually bend your elbow as your horses head comes up, remember to ask with your leg for the hind legs to come through and lift the front end.
for the canter, recognise when your horse is going to break in the canter and ask for a trot transition so that you remain balanced. then try and gradually increase the time in canter.
for the canter, recognise when your horse is going to break in the canter and ask for a trot transition so that you remain balanced. then try and gradually increase the time in canter.
Sophie
Do you want test "cheat" tips ? or schooling tips ?
Because both could be the symptom of the horse not working properly through his back, and certainly indicate there might be tension and a lack of balance. So the long term is to work on those ?
what is his "normal" walk like ? Practice varying the stride length and frame of the horse within the walk - compress it into a bouncy short stride walk, and then let it out to "normal", and then see if you can let it out some more. But only let it out just as far as the horse can cope with right now - i.e. don't just drop him on his nose
The same with the "compressed" stride - try and only round it up as much as he can cope with and still be as soft as he currently is in his normal walk.
The temptation is to do the short stride on a short side, and lengthen along the long side or diagonal. Don't. Mix it up ! Try lengthen the stride on a curve, and shorten on a straight line. Do serpentines, short diagonals, circles, and vary within that.
Now the canter - what is the trot like before the canter ? The better trot you start from, the better the canter will be. Practice *transitions* up and down rather than trying to keep the canter going too long and it all falls apart. So, for example, ask for canter between quarter marker and A (or C). Aim to canter for 5 strides only and then ask for trot. Balance the trot, and when it is calm and sensible, either ask for canter again, or if you want to, ride a smallish circle and ask for canter as you return to the track. When you can get 5 strides consistently, ask for 7, then 9 etc.
Oh - and remember to *breathe*
Mark Rashid often comments about rider and horse holding their breath in canter - then the canter only lasts as long as the horse can manage on one breath !
Sounds a bit crazy but it works... I've seen it and tried it with a horse that consistently cantered 9-11 strides and then fell apart. Got him to breathe and all of a sudden it was twice, three times as far
One of the problems with the 20m circle is that they have often come off a long side and are slightly onward bound. If the horse struggles to shorten back up and balance, then they will break to trot somewhere on the circle. So once you can get a decent canter going - practice shortening it up using half-halts.
The other thing that might help is to work on a circle and do a similar build up to above but on how much of the circle you canter (1/4, 1/2 and so on). But if they break to canter, rather than being asked, try to get back to canter as soon as possible. Sometimes the horse simply hasn't figured out that you actually want him to stay in canter !
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