I recently bought a former amish standardbred. Has anyone retrained a former amish horse? Would love to hear. He doesn’t like to break from the trot but will gallop sometimes.He will break into the gallop from the trot but its full speed. He is super sweet and nice.
Any advice on:
How do i collect his canter?
How can i collect his trot?- he has a nice relaxed normal trot but its still fast and i would like to slow him down just a bit.
How can i get him more comfortable cantering?
Also anyone who has ever retrained a Standardbred, would love to hear how you did it. Same with a retrained amish horse.
THANK YOU
I retrained one off the track that had an impressive trot.
The first time we tried cantering in the indoor, she was across the long side in a few huge strides and we almost wiped out in the first corner before I could slow her back down, scary that.
It feels a bit like starting a colt under saddle, they have to learn to balance in a different way they have been getting around.
What helped, many transitions and changes of hand, figure eights, serpentines and such, starting at the walk, then trot.
We also used trotting thru poles and cavalletti and other exercises to teach awareness of where legs are.
Once you catch onto the needed skills, it becomes much easier because you do what you need to do without thinking, just comes naturally.
Take it slow, it will take as long as it takes if this is your first one.
