unbalanced canter help!

[cait_pony]

Hi everyone–

I’m working with a 16.3 TB HOT jumper mare this summer while I’m home. She hasn’t been worked in a year due to her former owner losing interest. The former owner’s trainer was given the horse to resell as they were unable to sell her. I’m getting her back into shape-- have been doing TONS of trot work, ground poles, etc. Her trot is coming together really nicely, she’s engaging from her hind and coming into my hand really well. She’s definitely out of shape-- she can only hold her “lift” for so long before she kind of collapses in the back, but she’s getting MUCH much better. I’ve started cantering her a little, but on the long sides of the arena because she is so unbalanced that I’m scared she’ll fall over in the corner! She’s a big girl, so that doesn’t help.

Even on those straight-aways though, she is so unbalanced and seems like she doesn’t know what to do with her hind end. I’ll get a nice sitting trot and ask her for a canter once we turn the corner and she immediately rushes into the canter and her hind end is all over the place. It seems like she has no idea how to get her hind end under her, and to compensate for this she runs around trying to figure it out-- which is unpleasant for me. What do you guys recommend I do about this? I’m out of ideas! Thanks in advance for your help

[IrishDeclan]

It sounds like you’ve made a great start!! My first question is how big is the ring that you’re cantering her in? Sometimes if the ring is on the smaller size, it’s hard for an unbalanced horse to canter through the corners. If we have one struggling with the canter, we like to take them out in the field. This way we can make big sweeping turns that give them a little more time to figure out where their feet need to go. When you say she rushes when she’s unbalanced, what exactly does she do? Does she hollow her back and put her head and neck in the air?

[cait_pony]

[QUOTE=IrishDeclan;7580320]
It sounds like you’ve made a great start!! My first question is how big is the ring that you’re cantering her in? Sometimes if the ring is on the smaller size, it’s hard for an unbalanced horse to canter through the corners. If we have one struggling with the canter, we like to take them out in the field. This way we can make big sweeping turns that give them a little more time to figure out where their feet need to go. When you say she rushes when she’s unbalanced, what exactly does she do? Does she hollow her back and put her head and neck in the air?[/QUOTE]

The ring is 80 x 160! And the field suggestion is a great idea! Thanks!

When she rushes, she hollows her back and her head goes straight up to avoid the contact that we were working well with during the trot. She has a really sensitive mouth, so I try and ride her with a lot of seat when she’s rushing, but I feel like that’s counter-productive when I’m trying to get her to figure out what to do with her hind end.

[SnicklefritzG]

How long have you been working with this horse? Becoming balanced, particularly at the canter can take some time.

I would recommend doing a lot of transitions both within and between gaits. Getting a balanced canter won’t happen overnight. If you work at it several times a week for a couple of weeks you still start to see a difference and then in a few months you will have a different horse.

[dreamingofdressage]

What about when you ask her to canter on the long side? Not in the corner?

[Manni01]

I agree with Snicklefritz. Do transitions. I started my mare 4 months ago and although she has a lovely canter it felt in the beginning like she was taking off under me. After many trot walk trot transitions (and you really have to ride them precise, no rushing and a very through trot walk transition without resistance) I started to do the canter again and it was like a miracle… I think the transitions give them the strength for carrying themselves in the canter. Now the canter is a dream :). It takes patience in the beginning, but it’s worth it

[Pokerface]

I agree with everything that has been said and wanted to add another exercise that has worked for me and the horses I ride, particularly a big/long mare who has a great balanced/rhythmical trot, but hollows and loses her hind end at the canter.

What I do is canter up to the corner and then kind of make my corner into a diamond. We get to the beginning of the corner and I aim her at the middle of the corner (the top of the ring), then when I get there, I turn her and aim her for the end of the circle, long side, repeat. It keeps them on their hind end and keeps you from leaning in. You can make as many sides to the diamond as you want. Like, for some of the stronger horses, I do 3 straight sides rather than 2. The great part is, once they “get” that, you can go back to turning the “regular” way, but if you feel them falling apart, you can just pick a part of the turn and incorporate the pirouette (that’s what we call it bc that’s kind of what they are doing). For weaker horses, I take half of the ring and just make it into a big diamond until they can hold themselves up.

I hope I explained this the right way because it really is a great exercise!

[GraceLikeRain]

I will be the one dissenting voice for this thread and say that sometimes transitions don’t work. I had a HOT mare who had a horrendous canter. When developing her canter, transitions made her agitated and more inverted. What worked best was putting her in a 30 meter circle, supporting with the seat/legs, and keeping the hands supportive but very quiet.

I committed to the canter. She would invert, fish tail, etc. and I just quietly sat it out. Early on she needed at least 2-3 laps to let out a big breath and trust that the canter wasn’t something scary. I would ride the canter until I got just a few steps of quiet or even the hint of relaxation and then we would go back to the trot.

As her strength improved I would ride in overlapping circles moving from one end of the arena to the other. Eventually we would ride straight until she started to get quick or weird behind and then we quietly rode into another big welcoming circle.

For her it was strength but also a mental block. She had to learnt that cantering was a safe place and she wouldn’t get pulled down the second she was quick or unbalanced.

May not be the right recipe for your big hot mare but it was the ticket for mine.

[visorvet]

+1 that transitions can be counter-productive in a hot horse, though I think we can hold a trained horse to a much higher standard in that respect. If you really think she may be unbalanced enough to fall, I would recommend doing the early canter work in a round pen or on the lunge line. This will not only give you a closer view of what she’s actually doing so that you can help her out more when you’re on her back, but also lets her sort things out for herself without too much rider influence. Once she’s getting it together a bit more without a rider (and proving to you that she is capable of keeping her hooves pointed down), you can add yourself to the mix.

[cait_pony]

@SnicklefritzG;7580358

How long have you been working with this horse? Becoming balanced, particularly at the canter can take some time.

I’ve only been working with her for a couple weeks. I’m just getting to the point where I want to focus on her canter so am thankful for all the helpful ideas and tips!

[cait_pony]

[QUOTE=Pokerface;7580494]
I agree with everything that has been said and wanted to add another exercise that has worked for me and the horses I ride, particularly a big/long mare who has a great balanced/rhythmical trot, but hollows and loses her hind end at the canter.

What I do is canter up to the corner and then kind of make my corner into a diamond. We get to the beginning of the corner and I aim her at the middle of the corner (the top of the ring), then when I get there, I turn her and aim her for the end of the circle, long side, repeat. It keeps them on their hind end and keeps you from leaning in. You can make as many sides to the diamond as you want. Like, for some of the stronger horses, I do 3 straight sides rather than 2. The great part is, once they “get” that, you can go back to turning the “regular” way, but if you feel them falling apart, you can just pick a part of the turn and incorporate the pirouette (that’s what we call it bc that’s kind of what they are doing). For weaker horses, I take half of the ring and just make it into a big diamond until they can hold themselves up.

I hope I explained this the right way because it really is a great exercise![/QUOTE]

Thanks so much for this suggestion! I’m going to try it with her tomorrow! It makes sense Thanks again!

[cait_pony]

[QUOTE=GraceLikeRain;7580523]
I will be the one dissenting voice for this thread and say that sometimes transitions don’t work. I had a HOT mare who had a horrendous canter. When developing her canter, transitions made her agitated and more inverted. What worked best was putting her in a 30 meter circle, supporting with the seat/legs, and keeping the hands supportive but very quiet.

I committed to the canter. She would invert, fish tail, etc. and I just quietly sat it out. Early on she needed at least 2-3 laps to let out a big breath and trust that the canter wasn’t something scary. I would ride the canter until I got just a few steps of quiet or even the hint of relaxation and then we would go back to the trot.

As her strength improved I would ride in overlapping circles moving from one end of the arena to the other. Eventually we would ride straight until she started to get quick or weird behind and then we quietly rode into another big welcoming circle.

For her it was strength but also a mental block. She had to learnt that cantering was a safe place and she wouldn’t get pulled down the second she was quick or unbalanced.

May not be the right recipe for your big hot mare but it was the ticket for mine.[/QUOTE]

You described perfectly how my mare reacts. Her previous owner got super nervous with her tendency to try and get away from you and would haul on her face, so I think when she thinks “canter” she thinks nervous rider and getting pulled down. Maybe I’ll try both approaches and see what works best for her. Thanks for your input!

[Manni01]

But… I at least did not talk about canter transitions I also have a horse which is potentially hot in fact my whole training aimed at preventing her from getting hot :). And the walk trot walk transitions also taught her to accept my leg aids. On reason why my mare felt like she would take of was because she did not accept my leg aids… I’m still not far enough to do canter transitions all the time right now we do only big canter circles

[flowerpot]

what about if you worked her lightly in a Pessoa rig? Even making them walk and trot in the lunging rig can help improve their gaits! Once she is more fit you could work on the canter.

[Manni01]

Just thought I would show my canter video from today as I think it shows what I was talking about. Still a bunch of work and you can see all my little problems but IMO she is improving
http://m.youtube.com/watch?v=oGYn9zC3dKM

[fordtraktor]

My new OTTB is a bit in this boat and I will tell you what we have been doing and seeing improvement. I have been working a lot on his trot…introducing first rhythm and forward, then adding on the contact. In the last few rides he is beginning to soften his jaw and reach for the bit and into the contact at the trot. This has paid off in spades at the canter and while his canter is still sometimes a hot mess, all I ask is that he stay straight as possible and get the right lead. I also work on trying to get him off his forehand so do some half halts, but basically I want baby stuff at the canter. But the actual work he is doing at the trot is carrying over and once to the left he actually gave to the contact and rounded up on Friday! Super big pats and praise. So keep the faith and just focus on the small stuff and the trot, and keep asking him for canter work each ride, but not perfection during that canter work. He isn’t strong enough to provide it yet.

[cait_pony]

[QUOTE=Manni01;7582570]
Just thought I would show my canter video from today as I think it shows what I was talking about. Still a bunch of work and you can see all my little problems but IMO she is improving
http://m.youtube.com/watch?v=oGYn9zC3dKM[/QUOTE]

What a cutie you have! Thanks for sharing!

I took all your suggestions and played around with my mare a little today, and I think I found something that worked! The majority of my ride consisted of trot work, trot work, trot work. I set up a bunch of ground poles and basically worked the ring doing different combinations/weird bends and unexpected turns to get her really listening and bending off my leg. I think this type of work really helped her when it came to canter time. I set her up on a 30 m circle and asked for the canter, and had a much better transition INTO the canter, which set us up for the rest of the canter to be much better. Wobbly still, yes, but 100x better than the canter we had previously.

Before, I’d canter her and then it seemed like our whole ride would fall apart. Today she seemed to settle back into trot work after our little episode of canter when I asked, and repeated the nicer transition when I asked her to canter again. Definitely still wobbly and a little rush-y, but I finally felt like she wasn’t going to topple over. She was listening to my aids and I felt a lot less back hollowing and throwing her head up in the air, so I could actually communicate with my leg/seat/hand. I’m a very happy rider today! I can’t wait to get back out and work some more tomorrow. Thanks everyone for your lovely suggestions! I really appreciate it

[cait_pony]

Also, I wanted to add that I took GraceLikeRain’s suggestion to just ride through the canter until she realized it wasn’t scary and she could get out her rushy-ness without me pulling her back down. I must admit, it was easier to do this as she had a bit more balance this time and I didn’t feel like we were going down, haha. But nonetheless, great suggestion and thanks so much!

[GraceLikeRain]

OP so glad to hear that you had a good ride! With a hot horse it seems like so many tiny factors impact their relaxation and those factors are hard to convey remotely. It sounds like you’re decision to get her forward but relaxed, attentive to your aids, and balanced through the upward transition contributed to a really positive experience for both you and your mare. You managed to address multiple sides of this multifaceted problem simultaneously. That is really impressive.

[PoohLP]

My boy is very big and it’s take him quite a bit of time to learn how to use himself in the canter. He’s naturally a little downhill as well, which doesn’t make it any easier. I have found that he does better on a 20 or 30 meter circle than cantering around the whole arena. There simply is less room for him to fall apart and it allows me to encourage him to be on the outside rein a little more. When he was younger and more gangly, all I really could ask and expect of him was that he stay up enough not to tip over in front, but no real contact. His back end felt like a jolting seesaw as he threw it side to side because he just couldn’t figure out how to get it under hisself. Really, really unpleasant to ride. As he’s matured and learned to use his backend better, this has really improved.ive found that trot work does more to improve the canter than anything and second the suggestion of lunging him at the trot in side reins a little bit before riding each day (5-10 minutes each direction)to help him build the back muscles he will need lift his hind end up under himself in the canter.

Recently, he really started making progress at the canter and we decided it was time to really insist on more from him at the canter as far as contact and proper carriage. Unfortunately, I think we asked a little too much too fast and, as a result, we had to take a step back because he lost his forward and resisted going forward into the canter - which sounds like what your girl is doing. This isn’t his normal thing so we checked him and realized his back was sore. Once we got that sorted, we went back to just getting him into the canter with minimal contact (chuck the reins and go!), getting him moving really forward and up and only once he gets rolling, slowly start asking step by step for him to put himself together and to come on he bit. The results have been incredible and fast. He simply needed to re-learn that the canter is a safe place and that I wasn’t asking for anything he didn’t have to give. I’ve also found, that once I get his canter going, I can come back to it lateri n the ride and ask for a proper transition with some contact and really work on riding him in contact at that point. But right now, he really needs the “warm up canter” to allow him to stretch and get his muscles firing right. I tend to throw it in during the first 10 minutes warmup portion of my ride, then come back to the canter again later.