From: Shemarrah
Hi Jessica, Firstly I must say that this is the most informative site I have ever found! I have spent hours looking for a site like this to help me with my problem!
I have a rising 8 yr old TB gelding! He has a fantastic temperament doing everything, he's willing and learns quickly! One problem! I've noticed that he sometimes tends to rush when doing the trot coming down towards the gate, I know this is natural but sometimes it is so rushy that he breaks into a canter, I have tried half-halts and sometimes end up hanging onto the reins or stopping completely! Coming to the canter, he has a very long strided, fast canter and I haven't cantered for a while because I'm scared I'll lose control! I know that there is nothing that is causing him pain so he isn't running away from the pain of anything! He has his trot pretty much established! When I say this I mean that he can do both extensions and collections. Good tempo and is pretty much relaxed, (except when coming down the arena towards the gate)! Overall I just want help with getting his canter under control and teach him to be properly balanced in both gaits, canter and trot!
Every other site has always recommended to buy this book and that book and have provided me with very vague information! I saw how much you have helped other people who have had problems! I hope you can help me. Thank you for your time, keep up the good work!
Shemarrah
Hi Shemarrah! This is a very common problem, if that's any comfort to you.
;-) I'll be glad to give you some suggestions.
First, no matter what anyone may tell you, don't canter until you are ready and you WANT to canter. Cantering because someone else is pestering or daring you to canter won't help with your fear, it will only make it worse.
Don't canter until you feel that you have your horse under easy control at a balanced walk and trot, and that you can send him from walk to trot and back, easily. Don't canter until you can send your horse from a short round trot to a longer, flatter (but not faster!) trot and back, without doing anything more to bring him back than sitting up straighter and closing your fingers tightly for an instant.
When you are ready, learn to canter in a controlled situation, ideally, in a large field, in the company of others, so that you can practice speeding up, slowing down, and passing others.
Learn to use your weight and leg aids to help you ask for transitions between gaits and transitions within gaits. When you've become comfortable with the process of asking your horse to go from a trot to a canter, from a canter to a trot again, then once more into canter, back to trot, and from a short round canter to a longer, flatter canter and back again, you'll feel much more comfortable with your own ability to get the gait and length of stride you want, and to change from one to another easily and pleasantly.
You'll also find that it's much easier to keep your horse at a shorter, rounder trot, which will keep him under better control when you're approaching the gate. If he canters anyway, you'll still have him under better control, because the canter he will take from a short, round trot will also be shorter, rounder, and more controllable.
Many trot-canter-trot transitions will help -- once you know that you can always go from canter to trot, you won't feel so out of ontrol when he's cantering, and if he does go from trot to canter you'll know how to bring him back to trot. You'll also know that a horse that is cantering fast and flat can be asked to canter more slowly and with more roundness.
The gate issue is a separate one. Horses that "run away" toward the gate are perfectly capable of doing it at trot and even at walk -- it's not so much a matter of speed per se, it's more a question of attention and focus being removed from the rider!
Think about what the gate means to you: a place where you are afraid your horse will want to go, and a place near which you are afraid your horse will start to go fast.
You have to consider both horse and human psychology here. What does the gate mean to your HORSE?
In most cases, the gate means many things, all of them nice. It means rest, dinner, friends, saddle gone, bridle gone, rider gone, work over, freedom to roll, to scratch and rub the itchy places, and to relax and be a horse.
If the horse enjoys its time in the arena, it will still have those feelings about the gate. If the horse does NOT enjoy being ridden, it will also feel that the gate is a safe haven.... and it will want to go there at every opportunity.
Of course a horse will want to hurry toward the gate!
So you know that a horse's natural reaction to seeing the gate will be to go a little faster and focus more on the gate, and on what is beyond the gate, than on you, the rider.
Then think about what YOU are doing. Nervousness in humans generally manifests itself in several physical ways: we curl up (lean forward), we grab with our hands, and we don't breathe, or at least if we DO breathe, we don't breathe slowly and deeply. So, if you have the reactions of a normal nervous human, you're going to curl up on the horse's neck, pull the reins, and hyperventilate -- all of which says ONE thing to your horse: "Hurry, hurry, go as fast as you can, there's danger!"
So, in terms of rider psychology: the gate means that the horse will speed up, so the rider becomes apprehensive, holds the reins tightly, leans forward approaching the gate.... thus saying to horse "Hurry, hurry, run!" Since the horse is more than happy to speed up approaching the gate in any case, this can lead to some very fast approaches and eventually to some accidents.
The best solution is twofold: work on yourself and on the horse.
For yourself: Teach yourself to sit up and breathe deeply when approaching the gate, and to keep your horse busy. You can't tell a horse "Don't notice the gate." You CAN tell a horse "Bend a little this way... thank you... now step a little more deeply, please.. that's it, thank you... now stretch your neck a little more... thank you... now step to the side, thank you, one more step, good, thank you... now step forward again..." and by the time the horse has done everything you've asked, one piece at a time, and you've said "Thank you" for each separate answer to your aids, you'll have gone past the gate without fear or argument.
For your horse: Don't dismount at or just outside the gate -- don't teach the horse that the gate is where all the best things happen. Instead, dismount in the arena -- at the other end, away from the gate, in the middle, on the opposite wall, ANYWHERE that isn't near the gate.
When we always dismount at the gate, or just outside the gate, we teach our horses that the gate is a good place, and, without meaning to, we also teach them to go toward the gate at every opportunity, asking "Now? Is it NOW when you'll get off? NOW? Here it is, here's the gate, here we are at the getting-off place!" By always getting off just at the gate, we teach our horses to think that going to the gate is a way to ask remind or encourage us to get off them. So treat the gate like any other part of the enclosure, and always go PAST it or AWAY from it when you are ready to stop at the end of the ride.
When you get to wherever it is that you intend to dismount, stop the horse.
Dismount, pat the horse, praise the horse, run up your stirrups, loosen your girth, give the horse a treat, take the reins over the horse's head, and then lead the horse back to the unsaddling/grooming area. Give him another treat and a nice scratchy grooming, then put him back into his pasture or paddock or stall. If the horse is going back into a stall, and if there is no-one else in the arena, you may be able to take the tack off the horse then and there, and allow him to roll before going back to the stall.
Jessica
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