Hello, a horse that i ride has the habit on left circle, sometimes, when cantering,to change lead behind and being disunited. I also feel that his tendency is to put his hips to the right, so when i canter on the right circle i always feel he is quite bent to the right with his hips in the inside of the circle and when i canter on the left circle he won’ t bent properly to the left. Do you think that it is always a soundness issue? he does it when i am cantering quite slowly. the horse is 4 years old.thank you
Cantering « slowly » is technically more difficult, if well executed.
You shouldn’t make your horse canter so slow that would make him struggle.
Soundness is evidently to consider but young horses need to be well ridden into contact to develop their core and mass muscles, which implies forward and impulsion to set them straight.
Your horse sounds quite weak and stiff. You don’t want to develop « bad habits » so my suggestion is that you should find a trainer that will teach you how to build a good fundation in your young horse.
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yes you are right, but when i want to go forward he gets quite hot so i think i am always trying to making him go slowly
You are riding him backward. If you keep riding the way you are, you will soon run into bigger problems.
You really need a trainer, someone to show you how to train your horse; what to do and what not to do.
Please find one who will help you regularly, like every week. Find someone who does what you want to do with this horse and one that could ride your horse and show both of you what is expected.
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The horse is obviously young (4), he is not yet strong enough to hold a balanced slow canter. He goes fast because he is trying to keep his balance.
He is also quite crooked. It is your job as a rider to use your legs, and you may have to educate him to respond to your legs, to ride him straight.
This will need the help of an instructor who can keep you on track.
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In addition, the best thing you can do to improve a horse’s canter is fitness - get out of the ring, find some hills, go on long hacks, work on shortening and lengthening the walk and trot. Pay attention to forward and straight.
Your horse is telling you that what you are asking him to do (canter slowly on a circle) is hard for him. That means you need to back up and fill in some missing pieces in his flat work before asking him to do this.
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Yes I ll have a chiropractor coming anyway tomorrow, I find more difficult not to ride backwards a hot horse
My horse cantered similarly when he was having a stifle issue. But He needs more forward. Maybe use a grab strap on his neck if you are uncomfortable. You don’t want to bottle a hot horse up or ride them backwards, you want to use their energy. It will be unbalanced at the moment being young and green, but it will get better.
Yes, unfortunatly he had a stifle issue but by then he didn r canter desunited even with that problem. I think that not good riding maybe doesn t help but I think it might be some pain underlying. In one training session he might desunite a couple of times but he doesn t have problems with lead changes
Why would you,at this point in time, even think of asking for lead changes.
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i m not asking right now, i tried to see if he had the same issue changing and when i asked him he would change in front and behind at the same time
These all sound like typical young horse issues with learning balance at the canter. The solution is riding forward at the trot to develop strength and balance and riding forward at the canter preferably out of the arena on trails so horse can build strength at the canter without worrying about corners and bend. Canter circles are hard work for a green horse.
If you do not have the experience and confidence to ride a green horse forward, you really need a good coach in the mix to help you out and maybe do some training rides on him.
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He likely leans his shoulder left and his hind goes right. Not uncommon in a youngster. Start asking him to carry more weight on his right hind during canter work and he’ll get stronger and straighten out from the back forward. Turn on the forehand to the left, then some light work on haunches in to the left will help him strengthen. Do this at a walk for a while, obviously.
asking him to carry more weight on his right hind? but if his hips go to the right that is because he carry already a lot of weight to the right, no?
he turns in a left circle leaning on his left fore and putting haunches outside so that is why he changes behind. could you please explain what you mean by carrying more weight on his right hind during canter work? thank you very much
No, hind end swings right because he’s pushing with his LEFT hind.
Picture this: If you are on your hands and knees, and you step forward and toward your midline with your right “hind”, your “hind end” will propel left.
Turn on the forehand left encourages him to step under his body and toward his midline with his right hind. You can try it on the ground to see. This encourages him to be aware of that hind leg, helps you connect it to your problem, and helps you strengthen it at the same time.
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Your exercices might be really good for strengthening, but realize that the OP isn’t experienced enough yet to understand, and practice on their own these precise movements.
Working at the walk with a hot green 4 yrs old will lead to other problems if not well prepared/managed, especially if the forward button is not installed, or feared.
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I am working through a similar issue right now. While trying to figure out whether it was weakness or pain related, a few things helped:
- Spend time really getting your horse to seek the bit down to strengthen his back in walk, trot, and canter. Lots of “stretchy” feeling contact. Forward is your friend.
- In the canter warm up, think of getting off of the horse’s back in two point and encouraging him to go forward and use his whole body from back to front. It was an eye-opener to me that my horse did much better when I got him really stretching down and I left him alone in the contact.
- Cavaletti – Walking over cavaletti is good for loosening the back and strengthening the stifles. You can build up to trotting and cantering. Don’t over do it at first.
- In the canter itself, be sure you are not bending the horse too much with the inside rein. On the circle, try to give the inside rein and see if that helps. Also, in the difficult lead, try slight counter-flexing to get the horse standing up in the shoulders rather than laying on one side. As the horse gets stronger, you can softly switch between slight or thinking counter-flex, straightening and very slight flexion to inside.
- Lots of transitions within gaits - especially at the trot while the canter is still weak.
- At the canter, go forward. Don’t stay in it too long. More transitions in and out of canter are likely better than waiting until the horse loses its balance in the canter.
- Rein back. Introduce some steps of rein back on the ground. Again, don’t do too much as this can make a horse sore.
- Hill work if you have the terrain and can safely do so.
These things really made a difference for my horse. The canter improved dramatically, but did not completely solve my problem, so I’m now investigating some physical issues. Best of luck.
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To be very blunt, you have no business riding or training a young, inexperienced horse. Find a trainer that can at least put a few months of quality work on him before you end up creating even more serious issues.
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Excellent point. Especially in conjunction with difficulty riding a hot horse back to front. Thank you.
thank you everyone, the horse had a stifle injury time ago, the chiropractor came and found some soreness in his left sacroiliac and some more little issues
