@RAyers I’m sorry if losing their balance is poor phrasing. You’re right, they know how to balance themselves for that job, but the balance needed is very different in their new one. So I let them move in ways so they can maintain the new balance without putting them into situations where they get punished for using their balance in the old way. As forward as the new balance allows
Its nice to hear how you get them going. This is very similar to how I’m working my new guy, I just need footing where I can get a few days per week.
@findeight I’ve been using a middle ground in the longing part of our program. I use a reversed bungee, so the top is at the middle of the surcingle and the sides run down the loops out to the bridle. Its set lightly but is introducing the idea of a soft elastic contact that is just ‘there’ without hitting a possible hard limit. If I’m longing him over poles, its currently in the halter since he’s just not ready for both.
Bungees are good and can be rigged several different ways to replace a lot of pricey gimmicks. So can clothesline and some duck tape. You need to understand what you want it to do but when the goal is get them to where they don’t need ut, the least intrusive, easiest for them to understand way, they are handy.
And not all OTTBs are the same. Some are super well started…and very easy to transition. Some have been ridden roughly or had their brains fried. So it totally depends on what you have.
I do generally canter a bit in the ring…but I’m not working on improving their canter. Just getting off their back and going around the whole ring. And not typically more than once around…I want them to lose fitness not gain it. I’m at most just trying to get both leads and seeing where we are. So I just don’t worry about the canter…and if it gets the horse too wound up…I don’t canter. If like the OP described, the horse gets strong…I personally wouldn’t canter until my breaks and steering were more fully in stalled.
I work more at the walk and trot and try and get out of the ring as much as possible. I would not canter on a lunge line. They likely cannot hold the canter well on that size circle.
:lol: Oh I have a tickle trunk of tools but I’ve always resisted the bungee only to find my big mare prefers it to more conventional longing tools. Primarily because it doesn’t provide a clear release, a defined point of escape from pressure.
Now that I have one, I never use it the way I always see (over head, through bit, between legs to girth) but in setups more like conventional side reins. It’s handy to introduce a consistent ‘handshake’
I know. It’s a disaster waiting to happen. She bought the horse as a 3 year old. Bad habits on the ground are already starting to develop since owner doesn’t correct the naughty behaviors. A few quick corrections from me and horse knows I won’t put up with that b/s! Horse was in training 3 days a week with my trainer, but owner cut that down due to budget. My trainer still rides 1x week and says the runaway canter thing just started a few months ago after horse’s exercise schedule was cut down. Trainer said horse was one of the easiest young horses to start. I’m hoping I can step in and help before horse becomes too unruly.
Once I get to know this horse and have her mind/body focused on work again, I think it will be a really good thing for all parties. I haven’t had a TB in my regular lineup for a while and I miss my own OTTB dearly. While I’ve worked with plenty of slightly naughty horses, they were old enough to know better and easier to correct. This youngster really doesn’t know any better under saddle… yet.
When I start cantering OTTBs I find it helpful to take the horse out for quiet hacks and let it break into a canter on its own when it wants. I try to remember that they have little idea what we expect from them, feel the canter cue and think ‘omg I have to GO’ and that’s often why you get a instant take-off/head toss/freight train. If they can spend time cantering in an unpressured environment they get used to just loping along checking things out without fretting, and when you do start cuing them for it they have a much nicer reaction.
After restarting a few OTTBs I developed a routine of developing the walk and trot to 2nd level dressage equivalent before doing anything with the canter. Up until that point I would canter occasionally, more as a break from whatever we were working on, like you would use walking on a long rein for a break (so unpressured, like Punchy said above). So we’d do a few strides here and there, but I didn’t make any attempt to shape the canter until I had the ability to shape the other gaits precisely. Then the canter was quite easy because balance, strength, and communication were already well established. For me, the process took a few months.
If you feel you just can’t handle the canter, start the horse now on the longe, with primarily trot work on a large circle-20 m. Once your voice commands are text book, you can ask for canter, with many transitions back to trot. Arena work is an entirely different balance for them. Make your initial session short 5 min max on each rein, increasing time to 10 on each rein gradually, I’m talking weeks.
From you last post, it would appear that you also have an owner/rider in way over her head.
I hate to tell ya this but you will never burn off a thoroughbred’s energy! I’ve seen mine veined out and steaming after an endurance ride and still excited for more. In my experience, lunging has been unproductive and at times counterproductive. My guy gets hyped up after lunging. (my personal experience)
When I was bringing up my OTTB it took forever to get him to figure out the canter. It took a year or two, blood, and tears for the canter to get worked out.
It is honestly a balance and muscle thing. They have spent so much time and training pulling on the forehand that the canter is all wonky. You have to retrain balance and muscle strength to be a pushing from behind feeling instead of a pulling over the forehand. The only thing that you can do is log the hours and hours of practice.
Don’t spend too long in the canter right now, once around the arena is plenty. Just do little bits sprinkled in with your other training. Instead of one rein stops, see if you can take him on smaller and smaller circles until he transitions down, and then praise him and give him a break. Work him up slowly.
My OTTB seems to get “hypnotized” by his leg movements where he just wants to keep going and going. Try to catch him before that happens and keep him listening One way I keep him in the classroom is by switching things up and always making him think. So instead of just going straight nonstop, I’d throw in circles and flavors of shoulder-fore. Just keep the brain focused on something other than his movement.
Set him up for success when you do something make it obvious and easy. For example, if you know he likes to take off after 5 strides of canter, break at 4.
This is all just stuff I did with mine! There no right answer for this stuff feel it out and find out what works for you
Yup. Everything I’ve seen has shown TBs especially get ‘tired and wired’ not ‘tired and chill’. Its why I like to walk on them until their brains chill out. Nothing to bring up the adrenaline, everything approached as ho-hum no big deal. Then I add a little, as long as they don’t start to adrenalize, so on and so on.
Not everyone has the time or patience for this but I’ve had good luck with it
Such good advice in this thread. Nothing to add really, other than these videos can be really helpful to see how to help an off track horse balance their canter.
I will also suggest trying to stay off their back when they are first learning the canter in the ring. It will be a struggle for a green owner to train an OTTB straight off track to canter well without worry. I would strongly suggest you suggest a trainer for this horse.
I would be encouraging the owner to re-home/sell. I would not be enabling this developing disaster.
You can’t be a constant on-site babysitter. She is going to be seriously injured.
Not being able to afford full training isn’t going save the owner.
And sadly, there is nothing you can do to save her, either. It isn’t your horse. You have no control over your access, no authority over the owner’s actions and decisions. You are convincing yourself of a fallacy because you would very much enjoy helping this horse. I am very sorry that your plan is full of holes that will leave you very disappointed and the owner at serious risk.
But it is very good of you to want to try.
The longer this owner owns this horse, the greater the chance of a very bad outcome for the horse as well. The best help anyone can give is to get this horse moved onward into the hands of the right sort of owner, asap.
Justapoze-"Really thoughtful responses and a great consensus on how I move forward with this horse. Thank you so much!
I lunged her today - that was a bit ugly. Again, A LOT of pulling at trot with her head in the air, head way overflexed inward. I only asked for short bouts of canter, which horse was reluctant to do. I hear she has a bad habit of pulling her owner over and running out of the arena. My hope had been to burn off some of her baby energy before riding, but not sure lunging is the answer for this one. We may have to spend some time in the round pen learning manners in a more relaxed setting. Toward the end of our lunge, I did get some nice walk/trot transition work out of her. She is lovely when she decides to get to work."
The purpose of longeing is not to burn off energy, but as a training tool. Learn how to properly adjust side reins,and apply, that will help with overflexion, stabilize the trot and trot walk transitions before you eve think of cantering. Then keep the canter sessions short, and on a large circle. As she better learns to balance heself, and what is expected of her, she will become more comfortable on the longe, and nicer under saddle.
Hill work is great. It forces the horse to use the hind end. Going straight down really helps the balance. Go uphill at canter, down at walk. Twenty minutes of that will take some of the steam off yr locomotive.
Thank you for that. If people ask why I’m not moving along more hastily with my one 40 rides off the track, that’s why. Not cantering yet because the walk is developing but still shaky, and the trot looks like an excited camel. Horse is sort of beginning to grasp that just going for a quiet ride is a thing. Let’s figure that out first.
