When do you introduce the counter canter to a green horse? Would you if the horse was still a little confused about correct leads? Do you think it would help a young horse to learn correct leads?
No. You don’t introduce it until the horse picks up whichever lead you ask for every time. Then you can simply ask for the other lead.
When they are solid at the canter and understand picking up the lead asked for AND holding whatever bend is asked for. I do some straight line work, simple changes, out off the rail or in a field to be sure they do understand the lead has nothing to do with the rail. Trot some big circles counter bent and ask for it on the rail. There is some strength involved and would never put one in a position to fail by fooling with it if I had any doubts they could do it.
The first thing is simply to teach the horse to pick up the lead based on YOUR AIDS, not direction they are going down the ring.
For instance, go down the centerline, pick up the lead you chose, the turn that direction.
But I would not ask for an actual counter canter until the true canter is VERY balanced.
Once the true canter is confirmed, you introduce counter canter with very slight bending lines (e.g., start to turn across the diagonal, then go back to the rail in the original direction.)
Then progress to a full change of direction (e.g., go across the diagonal and change direction at the end, maintaining the original lead)
Only when that is confirmed do you actually ask for a TRANSITION directly into counter canter.
I may get some flack for this, I know everything has it’s place and maybe it just hasn’t found it’s place in my book yet. But I don’t teach counter canter per say.
I do use counter flexion, only short bursts though. I do love it for warm up even at the walk.
One exercise I always come back to is serpentines in the canter, start in corner in the correct lead, move off your leg to quarter line, keep the flexion the same to the inside, then slowly leg yield back. Being sure to not shift your weight and keep the horse balanced.
Another reason I don’t teach counter canter could be because the horses I have been riding and my own mare just are not ready, mentally, for counter canter.
I may think about it later on when changes of lead require no thought but I think a lot of the benefits of counter canter can be achieved other ways without risk of confusion. But I only ride hunters so I haven’t found I would need it unless I were to ride Eq’s or dressage.
Oh and to answer the question for youngsters, IMPO, teach a change first, once they can be done in the horses sleep, maybe think about it.
[QUOTE=Anteup;7366568]
When do you introduce the counter canter to a green horse? Would you if the horse was still a little confused about correct leads? Do you think it would help a young horse to learn correct leads?[/QUOTE]
Counter canter is great for helping to balance a green horse and to lift it’s inside shoulder when on the correct lead. The correct lead comes from the outside hind leg, so the horse should be responding to your leg and lateral work will help improve this. So to get a correct lead, your horse needs to step under itself in response to your leg. You can do both counter canter work and also lateral work to help improve the horse’s balance and canter departs.
[QUOTE=pryme_thyme;7370928]
I may get some flack for this, I know everything has it’s place and maybe it just hasn’t found it’s place in my book yet. But I don’t teach counter canter per say.
I do use counter flexion, only short bursts though. I do love it for warm up even at the walk.
One exercise I always come back to is serpentines in the canter, start in corner in the correct lead, move off your leg to quarter line, keep the flexion the same to the inside, then slowly leg yield back. Being sure to not shift your weight and keep the horse balanced.
Another reason I don’t teach counter canter could be because the horses I have been riding and my own mare just are not ready, mentally, for counter canter.
I may think about it later on when changes of lead require no thought but I think a lot of the benefits of counter canter can be achieved other ways without risk of confusion. But I only ride hunters so I haven’t found I would need it unless I were to ride Eq’s or dressage.
Oh and to answer the question for youngsters, IMPO, teach a change first, once they can be done in the horses sleep, maybe think about it.[/QUOTE]
That’s interesting.
The traditional school of thought (and my experience) is that the ability to counter canter makes lead changes much easier to train. Counter canter is about the development of muscles - it isn’t something you “teach” per se.
As someone up thread stated - you really don’t need to “teach” counter canter. You just teach them to pick up the lead based on rider aids rather than direction of travel, and develop the fitness required for counter canter.
Canter counter is extremely useful for the development of a balanced and rideable horse. I certainly wouldn’t look to teaching a lead change without some semblance of a counter canter.
I would also not work on the countercanter before they automatically change lead in the turn.
Normally my horses will do this when they are four cantering around small courses. If they do not start to automatically swap leads I will simply leave the leadchange out of it altogether until they are stronger.
They have a lot to learn in their fourth year if they do finals and I tend to leave it as simple as possible. Cantering around the course at a speed I choose and jumping all the jumps is plenty complicated.
I will then start to introduce the countercanter when they are five asking them to first do just shallow bows in towards the middle of the ring and back again, leaving the track just a few feet to start out and then gradually asking them for more.
At the same time I will start to ask them to pick up the off-lead, first going straight for a few steps and then doing a simple change and after a while going through a corner and then past the short end.
I find countercanter to be very useful for strengthening the canter. Since I do the jumpers I will rarely go as far as asking them to jump from the countercanter but I will try to put a little bit of equitation on all my jumpers when they are 5 and 6 as I find it helps keeping them attentive and interested in the work.
In USDF dressage tests, counter-canter comes before lead change, and is therefore fundamental to teaching a clean and balanced flying change. In my own limited experience, trying to teach a horse who has only learned flying changes to counter-canter is extremely difficult, but a horse with a strong and balanced counter-canter is much easier to teach the flying change.
