Exercises for balance improvement

[Momateur]

I adore my four year old greenie, but his balance leaves something to be desired. Posting here in the dressage group to learn from the experts!

At the trot, he’s generally okay, just wiggly. He’s not in the bridle, but I feel that’s above his paygrade right now anyway. We focus on going forward.

At the canter, he really struggles to carry himself. He’s either leaning on my hands or barrelling forward on his forehand. My trainer has us focusing on transitions and canter poles. Obviously lots of circles. I wanted to see if you all might provide some additional exercises we might try? He’s a good boy; I just need some more tools in my toolbox.

This horse is built very well, and is very sound, so there should not be any physical reason he can’t learn to canter balanced (he just has me for a rider, that’s his problem!)

[Hawks_Nest]

How is he on the lunge? You might find that spending some time lunging him and doing lots of trot-canter-trot and canter-trot-canter transitions will help him find his own balance. No need to spend a ton of time lunging, just enough to have him find balance.

Under saddle, loop the rein, sit back and let him canter. If he gets too quick use your voice and maybe one short touch of the reins to bring his head up to help his balance. It might be a bit scary at first but holding him up isn’t going to help so you have to go through the bad to get to the better.

Using poles, you can have trot poles set on one side of a circle. Trot in, canter after the poles and trot just before you get to the poles again. Let the exercise do the work.

[Rerider54]

@Momateur

…four year old greenie, but his balance leaves something to be desired…

At the trot, he’s generally okay, just wiggly. He’s not in the bridle, but I feel that’s above his paygrade right now anyway. We focus on going forward.

At the canter, he really struggles to carry himself. He’s either leaning on my hands or barrelling forward on his forehand…

This horse is built very well, and is very sound, so there should not be any physical reason he can’t learn to canter balanced (he just has me for a rider, that’s his problem!)

We like many transitions, trot-canter-trot etc. using you seat and weight and either going with the motion in canter or stopping the motion of your ankles/hips. You can keep a long rein or light contact. You can use large circles or around the whole arena and trotting the short sides and cantering the long sides and eventually trotting the long side and cantering the short sides.

The idea is that the first stride or two of canter from a balanced transition will be the best your horse has to give. After that you might as well come back to trot and rebalance, the try again. Keep in mind it takes years to build the muscles for a horse to truly carry themselves. Both leaning on your hand or barreling along on his forehand show that while willing he is probably not strong enough to carry himself at canter or at least not for long. Don’t overdo the canter work as that will invite bad habits and possible injuries. This work may seem boring to you and your horse so don’t drill endlessly, find some fun stuff as well.

[RedHorses]

We used to joke about my horse’s legs each going in a different direction with every step. :lol:

Riding patterns accurately helped him learn focus and the art of traveling straight. I used Needlepoint from 101 Dressage Exercises a lot. Serpentines of various sizes with circles as needed to get the correct bend. Repetitive patterns will only help if the rider is paying attention, sees the pattern track accurately, and corrects the horse so that each repeat is a little better.

I also found the forward and back exercise to be very helpful. That’s where you go a little more forward each step for 3-6 steps, then come back a little each step for 3-6 steps. How many steps is determined by how long the horse takes to respond - there has to be a change, even a tiny one, for this exercise to be useful.

Riding shoulder-fore/shoulder-in helped remind him that he had four legs. This helped even if only done in walk.

We had a trot pole exercise that helped as well, but I’d need a diagram to explain it.

[merrygoround]

I second the longe work. For the average rider, even a very good one, dealing with an unbalanced canter is challenging. A lot of balance is strength, transitions improve strength.

When riding circles make sure your circles are accurate with your outside leg keep his quarters under him, so the inside hind has to reach under.

If you have hills to hack on trot up them. Strength built at the trot will carry over to canter.