Posting on the incorrect diagonal can also be helpful if a horse is struggling to pick up the inside lead.
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I think that it’s the footfall series as well. It’s a lot easier for the horse to pick up the canter with the outside hind when he’s walking vs. trotting with diagonal pairs.
Yes! You got a canter, good, bad or indifferent, it’s what you asked for. Reward the horse, transition back to the trot and try again.
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I agree…interesting point I hadn’t thought about footfalls.
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Congrats on being the first person on Earth to never have ridden an unbalanced trot-canter transition on a young horse.
OP, what are your aids for canter? One thing some of my young horses have struggled with are connecting the aid with the lead. Eventually, I want my canter aid to be that I slide my outside lower leg back slightly and close the outside rein. This works because my outside leg controls the outside hind. But for some horses, the outside leg just means canter. It doesn’t mean right or left canter. It can be difficult to build the bridge between rewarding the young horse for just cantering versus cantering on the correct lead. What do you do when he gets the wrong lead?
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Let me rephrase. If there is rider bouncing in trot, there are probably bigger problems than the timing of the canter aid. Oh wait, that’s exactly what I said and exactly what I meant.
Nothing to do with getting unbalanced or whacky transitions from trot to canter - those will almost always happen with baby horses. If the rider cannot flow with the horse’s regular working trot or the horse’s balance is still terrible enough to cause the rider to bounce, there are much bigger problems than the timing of the canter aid namely fixing the rider’s seat in trot and/or fixing the horse’s trot because they are not yet balanced enough to worry about the canter, let alone the timing of the canter aids.
Hope that makes it clearer? I think we’ve ALL at one time or another got caught off during a trot - canter transition on a young horse! It happens.
Ah, young horses cantering - I feel your pain. My horse is coming 6 this year but when he was 4 cantering (under saddle, he did it at liberty just fine) was SO MUCH WORK. For both of us. He was not in front of my leg, he was uncoordinated and we both hated it. He was so lazy that any effort that looked vaguely like cantering was praised. Don’t do that! - he actually then had to be re-taught that a) cantering is a specific movement of your legs, b) there are 2 leads, one for each direction c) yes it matters and you have to do both, d) no you shouldn’t do one in front and the other behind.
He was the best cross-canterer in the whole country for a while. He just swapped behind when he got tired. Sometimes it was a full change. For a while the right lead was non existent. Then it was the left. It was SO frustrating. But he just didn’t know what he was supposed to do and it was physically hard and why should be bother. Fortunately I had another horse to ride who reassured me that I did in fact know how to ask for and ride the canter properly otherwise my confidence in my skills would have cratered. No one else had any luck, either.
BUT - as he grew up and got stronger (trail rides really helped), the issues dissipated and now he has a pretty nice canter.
So my guess is that your boy doesn’t really understand that he has 2 leads and you ask for them differently - he just knows canter! Yay Cantering. At least he seems to like it, just not always getting it exactly as you ask. You’re way ahead of the game on that.
I used words and exaggerated aids for a while - one tip that worked well for a bit was to look to the outside of the circle when asking. And use LEFT and RIGHT verbal cues with lots and lots of praise when he gets it right. If he gets it wrong, back to trot and ask again.
Good luck - he’ll pick it up but he’s young and just needs to learn.
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Thanks for all the comments on my topic.
In the end what I’m left with are some interesting ideas to try that will certainly further our training anyway (for example the idea to leg yield into the canter or try a roll back) but at the same time just to be patient and accept that sometimes we’ll get it wrong for now. It’s true his canter one year ago felt like an unbalanced draft and it wasn’t possible to stay in canter without GALLOPING around and now it’s becoming lovely and easy (we’ve got 8s in dressage tests!). Maybe the lead thing is just part of that development.
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Not sure whether it is the problem but I would also recommend trot canter transitions…
this video shows my 5 year old mare probably the same riding history as the OPs horse.
This was my lesson yesterday and my trainer wanted me to use my legs more ( this are most of her comments) und getting into canter by using the inner leg more makes it easy for the horse to get the right lead… I admit the lead was never our problem, I had other issues but IMO the video shows how using the inner leg helps the horse to get the right lead…. https://youtu.be/93nFFL2kTVY?si=o1WYpFcnR6YTKkPR
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