From: Lana
Dear Jessica, I'm at my wits end with this problem, and my trainer suggested that I ask you what to do. She is a horse-sense subscriber too! I've had my mare for almost four months now, and I can't get her to pick up her canter from a trot. I've tried cueing her with her nose to the outside, with her nose to the inside, using my outside leg, using my inside leg, even yelling CANTER at her! What makes me crazy and my trainer too, is that she will canter just fine from the walk, whenever I ask. She's a nice mare with very good bloodlines. She is an American Saddlebred, nine years old, and before I bought her she won a lot of ribbons in English Pleasure (I don't know anything about saddle seat riding but I guess this means she was really good!) I used to ride Western but I'm learning dressage and that's what I want to do with Lacy, but this canter problem has me so frustrated!! Please help me!!
Thank you very much for your answer and for horse-sense! Lana
Hi Lana -- don't worry, I don't think there's anything wrong with your mare. She's obviously a nice, well-bred, well-trained mare -- and THAT is the problem! At nine years old, your mare has had only four months of dressage riding -- the four months since you bought her. Before that, she had (probably) six or seven years of saddle-seat training. English Pleasure horses canter from the walk, NOT from the trot. Your mare has learned her lesson very well -- too well for your current purposes. She is NOT being uncooperative in any way -- after all, she'll canter from the walk, as she was trained to do, whenever you ask. ;-)
You'll need to start over with her canter work, being very patient. You might have your instructor help you by longeing the mare and teaching her (a) that she CAN pick up a canter from the trot, and (b) that it's OKAY to pick up a canter from the trot! Don't use a bridle at all, just a longeing cavesson and a long longeline -- at least 30'. And put boots on all four legs, just as you would with a very young horse, because you're going to ask her to do something that she isn't used to doing, and in case she hits herself, she should be protected. Then practice walk-trot transitions on the longe until she is comfortable with them, understands the handler's body language, and accepts praise happily. THEN ask for a few walk-canter transitions, and praise her when she canters. Finally, ask her to trot and THEN ask her to canter -- use exactly the same signals, the same body language, and the same verbal cues that you used when you asked her to canter from the walk. Be patient -- and if she trots faster and faster until she FALLS into the canter, accept it and praise her. Once she has the idea that she can do it and that you WANT her to do it and are happy when she does it, she'll relax and start to learn to make a more balanced trot-canter transition.
When she is very reliable in both directions on the longeline, have your instructor give you a mounted longe lesson. Your job will just be to SIT there and stay in balance with your horse; your instructor will tell her which gaits and transitions to perform. When she tries, praise her from the saddle. When she is comfortable making trot-canter transitions with you on board, begin to teach her to associate the transitions with YOUR aids and voice rather than your instructor's. When the transitions come easily, have your instructor take off the longe line -- and stay in the ring in case you need to use it again. Then YOU ask for your transitions, and eventually your mare will learn to listen to your aids rather than your voice.
Don't do too much in any one session -- as soon as you see that she is starting to understand, and as soon as she offers ANYTHING resembling what you want, praise her a lot and stop for the day. This will teach her much more than endless repetitions -- she needs to know when she gets it right. She'll learn quickly, and then you'll be able to practice and build up new reflexes and habits. You already know that once she's learned something, she is VERY reliable -- when her new ability to canter from a trot becomes a HABIT, she'll be reliable at that too!
Jessica
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