From: Evanda
Dear Jessica, I didn't find anything about this subject in your archives so sure hope you will answer me! I am having terrible trouble getting my colt to canter when we ride. He was fully grown at two and is now more than two and a half years old, so it is not like he is too young or does not understand me. I know he understands because he has done cantering in the round pen almost every day since he was two. Don't worry I usually keep him going for only about twenty minutes so that I don't overwork him. But I know that he knows when I yell CANTER!!! and hit him in the butt or else bang the whip on the ground behind him that he is supposed to canter because he always does it in the pen. BUT when we go out for a ride he is good for about the first hour when we are doing most of our riding at walk because of slippery ground and rocks close to my home, then when we get to the part of the trail that is better ground and not so many rocks where we can trot and canter, he trots with his head way up high instead of collecting, and he refuses to canter.
I have made him go in front of the other horse and behind the other horse so don't suggest that, I did it already and he still refused. He cantered one time when he was right next to the other horse and I had my friend reach over and hit CrackerJak with the whip real hard on his butt and I yelled CANTER!! like in the pen, and he cantered for about four steps, then he trotted and would not canter again. What can I do to make him canter? My friend says that horses go through a lazy phase when they are two and you have to push them to get them through it. But how can I push him if he won't canter? Please help me. Evanda
First, there is no way that your horse was "fully grown at age two" - he isn't fully grown yet. In terms of skeletal maturity, he isn't even half-grown - so please do keep in mind that he is, physically and mentally and emotionally, a very, very young horse. If you have any chance of keeping him sound as an adult, you are going to need to scale back his work schedule quite a lot. Riding him for several hours at a time, even over ideal footing, would be a bad idea - but riding him for several hours when at least two of those hours are spent on bad footing ("slippery ground and rocks") is an extremely bad idea. If he were a mature, experienced, nine-year-old horse, things would be different - but unfortunately for your youngster, he isn't any of those things. On the other hand, he is obviously very well-built and sound (so far), which is why he isn't lame yet. He is obviously very sweet and cooperative as well - which is why you're still alive.
Cantering in a round pen isn't particularly good for horses unless they are cantering in good form, on good footing, and in a pen that is large enough to allow them to canter a circle that's at least 66' (20 meters) in diameter. I worry that your round pen is probably a good deal smaller than this, because you're able to hit your horse with the whip when you want him to canter. Never mind that neither longeing nor round pen work should ever involve HITTING horses with whips - that's a separate issue! The very fact that you're able to reach your horse with the whip indicates that you are either running around in a circle close to your horse (unlikely) or that your pen is far too small for cantering. Even if you're using a longeing whip, something is very wrong here. Do the math: if your horse is cantering around a safe 66' circle, and you are in the middle of the pen, you will be 30' away from the horse even if his cantering track is three feet inside the fence itself. Let's say that you have a long longeing whip - a six-foot stock with a seven-foot lash - and that your arm is three feet long. That totals 16 feet - which means that even if you're very good with a whip, you couldn't possibly touch your horse's body with it from the center of the circle. You would have to be no more than 16 feet from your horse - which means that YOU would have to be running on a 28' diameter circle of your own, 14' from the center of the pen and 16' feet from your horse. I doubt that you're doing this - and if you ARE doing it, especially for twenty minutes at a time, you must be incredibly, amazingly fit! ;-)
In any case, twenty minutes of cantering is an enormous amount of work for any young horse, and a ridiculous amount of work for a two-year-old horse, and when it's done in a circle... just be glad he isn't lame yet.
My advice for you is that you STOP what you're doing - all of it - before your horse becomes lame, sour, or both. It's just a matter of time. He is far too young for the things you're asking him to do. Not only that, but the things you're asking just aren't appropriate for any horse at any time. If he's managed to stay sound and keep his lovely attitude, you should be very thankful.
From your description of the trail ride, it's fairly clear that by the time you've been out for an hour, your young horse is exhausted and sore - no surprise, since he's been carrying a rider all that time, AND traveling over "slippery ground and rocks". That's why his head comes up, and that's why he's barely willing to trot and unwilling to canter. Again, you're talking about a trail ride that goes over difficult terrain AND involves more than an hour each direction, so obviously your youngster is being asked to carry you for at least two hours and possibly much longer, depending on how much time you spend on the "better ground" part of your trail. This is far too much for a horse that is still figuring out how to balance and carry his OWN weight, and should not be burdened with a rider, much less be expected to carry one under those circumstances. As for him not collecting, that's no surprise either. Collection won't be in the picture for years to come, if ever - it's something that you can begin to create after the first few years under saddle (and no, you can't speed up the process by putting the horse under saddle too early). To collect under a rider, a horse needs to be mature, sound, well-developed physically, well-balanced, well-trained, and well-ridden. Collection means that the horse is able to balance in a shorter frame, carrying his own weight (and that of the rider), with greater bending of the hind legs, strong engagement of the belly muscles, a stretched and lifted back, more weight carried behind, and an elevated poll that is a RESULT of the increased action of the horse's hind-leg joints, the engagement of the horse's belly, and the increased carrying power of its back. All of this is far, far in the future - right now, your horse is making an effort to carry his own body! The proportions, build, and balance of a two-year-old horse change almost from day to day, and you cannot ask or expect a two-year-old to be able to function and balance as an older, mature horse would. A good trainer who starts a horse under saddle as a long three-year-old or as a four-year-old will not even think about collection for the first two years of ridden work.
You may have seen very young horses under saddle, moving with high heads and short steps, but those horses are not collected, no matter what their riders may have told you. Of course it's quite possible to create a false frame (from the withers forward) by pulling the horse's head up and in, but that won't fool anyone, least of all the horse. Please don't do that. Horses ridden in that way are invariably sore and unhappy, and just as invariably become unsound. It's always sad to see bad training and riding make a horse unhappy and unsound; it's tragic to see this happen with a young horse that shouldn't even be under saddle yet! You can't hurry a horse's physical maturation, and you can't create collection in a horse that isn't physically capable of collecting. Please don't try.
I hope that you will think about those things while you're giving your horse some much-deserved time off. His job right now should be to grow up and exercise himself in a field with other horses - not to carry a rider for hours at a time, and not to canter under saddle. If you want your horse to last, you'll put him back in his field immediately, and leave him there for the next six months or so. You don't have to be bored in the meantime - you should be taking lessons with a qualified, competent instructor who can teach you horsemanship along with riding skills.
One more thing:
If you teach a horse to canter whenever he feels something hit his backside, or whenever he hears something hit the ground behind him, he and you will inevitably get into trouble, and you are both likely to be involved in a bad accident someday. Your horse should canter when you ask him to, whether you give him a postural signal (round pen) or a verbal signal (longe line or long lines) or whether you give him a physical signal (riding) in the form of aids or a cue. If you find a good instructor as per my suggestion above, you will learn this, along with many other useful things. I hope you do!
Jessica
Jessica Jahiel's HORSE-SENSE is a free, subscriber-supported electronic Q&A email newsletter which deals with all aspects of horses, their management, riding, and training. For more information, please visit www.horse-sense.org
Please visit Jessica Jahiel: Holistic Horsemanship® [www.jessicajahiel.com] for more information on Jessica Jahiel's clinics, video lessons, phone consultations, books, articles, columns, and expert witness and litigation consultant services.