Slowing the Canter--Suggestions?

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Permalink Reply by Leah Klaassen on November 26, 2009 at 9:19pm

hey kathi, you can try riding him with lots of hand and leg contact at the canter. when you balance your horse between your legs and your hands, than he will listen more to the contact instead of pulling. also if you try to sit back behind or on his center of gravity instead of forward (which would push him forward), then it will be harder for him to speed.
Good luck, and happy riding!!

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Permalink Reply by Terri on December 2, 2009 at 1:13am

I'm of the belief that a horse should go the speed the rider dictates. If I want my horse to have a nice, relaxed lope on a loose rein, then that is what I'll get. If I ask for a little more forward Hunt Seat type canter, then that's what I'll get. Though, if I ask for a full out run for a barrel class, well something just aren't going to happen.

I used a few different tricks to teach my mare what I wanted. I used a different sound for different speeds. If I want a nice slow lope I'll give a quick 'kiss' noise, if I want something faster I'll hold the noise longer. To teach your horse to slow down make the right thing easy and the wrong thing hard.

So, ask for a canter and gently half-halt your horse to the speed that YOU want. When he speeds back up to the canter he's familiar with, I like to gently pull them into a small circle and bring them back to a jog and re-settle them. Then ask for the canter again and bring him back to the speed. He'll speed back up, so just shut him down again. What he'll eventually learn is that if he goes the speed you want, you'll leave him alone. If he goes the speed HE wants, he'll be trotting in small circles forever.

Also, when you pull him down in the circle, keep his hind-end under him. Too many people forget that western riding is still about collection so don't let him fall on his forehand on you and then start swinging those hips out during the circle.

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Permalink Reply by A_Sassy_Temptation on December 6, 2009 at 10:01am

As with what Terri said, making the horse work for HIS or HER wants and not your wants is a positive way to tell them they didn`t do what you asked when developing a slower canter or lope. Putting leg on a horse that KNOWS what the leg means will help (but if your horse has been taught alot of leg more impulsion it will not work), if you are deciding to try western pleasure showing I would try to avoid the half halts just because we are looking at no rein contact and one handed neck reining in western showing, and you don`t want to have to use that for your horse to realise to be slow (my opinion).

when I worked on slowing my mare down, I didn`t want to use rein (as I said above) and like Terri I still wanted a frame. For ``punishment`` I would back my horse up, which was more work for the horse, developed decent muscle, and kept the horse on its hocks or hindend. then after backing my old mare up, I would change directions (a reining type spin, where they stay on their hocks, but cross their front legs over), and then ask for the lope. If he goes way to fast to begin with, stop him, back him up, change direction and ask again, do not try to slow him down with rein (half halt) try with your seat, some leg, and a voice que. I had a racing mare, and I ended up showing her for 3 years at western pleasure shows before I sold her as a lesson horse.

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Permalink Reply by Terri on December 6, 2009 at 12:27pm

I do this this is very good advice. The reason I went with a half-halt type is because the horse is a former dressage horse and she's not looking for a WP type lope. I guess I took it to mean that she just wanted a horse that would slow down. Also, I didn't take it to mean she wanted something that would travel well on the super droopy reins that we like in pleasure.

But, like I said, I think this is very sound advice and I have used backing and roll-backs as well.

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Permalink Reply by A_Sassy_Temptation on December 6, 2009 at 12:48pm

oh no..I didn't mean the droopy rein either (even an avid WP rider I am often questionable on how droopy), I just read "slow enough to enjoy the ride" and I thought she really wouldn't want to always do half halts.. so I was thinking the odd canter down the trail?

I don't know much about dressage horses..I know more on 3 day eventing (my bestfriend is a 3 day eventer, but she dislikes the dressage part), huntseat, and then the western side of things (mostly the showing classes of WP, equitation, showmanship, and halter) but I am familiar with any other form of western riding without cattle as I began with horses as a trail rider, endurance, and gymkana stuff. So I could very well not know how dressage horses are trained.

also, the horse may not have been as advanced but isn't a collected canter pretty slow? I know an old dressage friend mentioned my old QH mare was doing a "collected canter" when she was loping in a open WP class..

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Permalink Reply by Geoffrey Pannell on December 2, 2009 at 3:54am

Hi Kathi, Keep it simple, think , eyes up, nose up, chin up , chest up, and close your thighs a little and wait and see . I bet he slows down! Cheers Geoffrey

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Permalink Reply by Wendy on December 11, 2009 at 4:10pm

Sometimes it's as simple as riding the speed you want to go. We all get caught up in riding the horse at his choice of speed..he goes fast, we ride fast. When your horse is loping/cantering, sit and ride slower....you will be surprised at how soon the horse reacts to your rhythm and slows down. Another little trick is to hum, a long hhhhhuuuuummmmmmmm.....as you ride. It relaxes your body and your horse will respond.

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Permalink Reply by A_Sassy_Temptation on December 11, 2009 at 9:58pm

Wendy has a point, although if you do not know how to properly slow your seat to slow the horse, you could actually chase the horse without knowing it.

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Permalink Reply by slc2 on December 14, 2009 at 6:43am

Well you can always get used to the dressage canter, LOL!

As a dressage rider, I have to respectfully disagree with some of the advice, for example, leaning back to slow horse, and using leg and rein more to slow horse, he won't react to that in the desired way. Some day he can learn that, but the way he's trained (or supposed to be trained) for second level dressage, I don't think that will work right now. He needs to sort of be 'transitioned' over to a different way over time.

I'd suggest riding him with more leg and contact will just make him think you want him to keep being a dressage horse and go energetically forward. Basically, you want him to do what dressage people call, 'pat the ground' in a very soft slow gait, it's a fault in dressage, but great for pleasure riders. The dressage horse 'pats the ground' when the rider is using less leg and just checking with the reins, and the half halt in western, I think it's not like a dressage half halt, it's more like a 'check', just use the reins to take for a moment and then let go without the leg or seat urging him on, do that, you will have the 'pat the ground'. To slow him, you have to sit still on the horse and not pump your shoulders or seat or lean either forward or back (back makes them go faster).

If he's a second level horse and was trained right, he should actually have a very comfortable 'dressagey' canter that is slow. If he seems to be going too fast for you, you might be urging him forward without knowing it, or the reins might be longer than he's used to, which puts his head too low for him to balance, so he goes fast to try and catch his balance.

At second level, we start putting the horse together more, with a shorter rein, and more leg encouraging him to step under. The hard part for most dressage riders is to ride on the shorter rein without pulling to keep it short, that just takes a lot of riding with the leg.

For many horses at second level, they are just getting used to it, and they can put a lot of contact on the bit as they figure this out, but eventually, they learn to keep their back up and keep their head up on a shorter rein without leaning on the bit. There is indeed a kind of 'awkward stage' that most riders go thru with their horse at second level in which it's 'not quite all there'. Second level is called the 'awkward level' for that reason.

So depending on how good the rider was and where he was at at second level, the horse could be 'more or less second level', LOL.

Leaning back doesn't slow down a dressage horse, either. It pushes your seat into the saddle harder, which tells a dressage horse to go faster. Leaning forward on a dressage horse doesn't tell him to go faster, it just tells him the rider isn't riding him and he is like either doing what he wants to do, or losing his balance more because the weight is more forward on him.

The horses can be switched over to a different type of training, but it helps to understand the type of training he probably got before you got him.

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Permalink Reply by saskia bremmers on January 5, 2010 at 2:15pm

Good news Kathi!
Since your horse is a 2nd level dressage horse he already has the necessary training tools to do what you are asking of him. Just like dressage slowing the lope for western is all about self carriage. Not only the horses but the riders self carriage as well. While there are many different exercises to help teach a horse to carry the lope I will only mention a few here.

First off I want to address rider position because this is crutial to your horse being able to stay in a balanced frame in a relaxed manner. Your horse will never be happy at this gate if the rider position is interfering. To help you visualize the correct position imagine I could snap my fingers and make the horse disappear out from underneath you, would you land on your feet? on your face? or on your bum? You should answer land on your feet with your knees softly bent. That will give you the mental picture of staying centered over your horse with your shoulders and hips in line with the back of your heels.

Trying to keep it simple I would first make sure that your horse is really warmed up and any excess energy has been worked out, sometimes just lunging your horse for 10 mins before you ride makes it much easier for them to focus. When you're working on the lope begin by applying half halts at regular intervals making sure to really give with your hands between each half halt this is the major difference between english and western; western horses are required to maintain their collected frame on a lose rein. It takes time and effort to teach both the horse and rider this. One of the simplest exercises you can do is to lope a circle with your horse. The size of the circle should be large enough that the horse can continue moving forward however small enough that he is encouraged to collect his gate. On the circle the rider must work with their leg and hand to encourage the horse to drive further underneath with their hind legs and round their back and lift their shoulders. Using a circle helps encourage your horse to slow down because it shortens one side of his body through the bend. Each time the horse responds with even the smallest effort the rider must respond by softening their hands. Through repetition the horse learns that every time he slows down and holds a collected frame he gets rewarded. You can also allow the horse off the circle onto a straight away. Taking the horse off of the circle and allowing him to lope on a straight line is a welcome break and a form of positive reinforcement -- he does something right and you make it easier for him.
There are a lot of important factors such as timing, rider position, riding skill etc. that all come into play. Using the services of a qualified instructor would certainly be beneficial. A second set of eyes is invaluable.

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Permalink Reply by Shirley on January 5, 2010 at 2:51pm

You mention here to warm your horse up. This probably should be unnecessary to say cause everyone should probably warm up prior to riding but with 15 people are my boarding facility, I've seen two people EVER stretch or warm up and even those two don't do it often. The human needs to warm-up too, especially if it's cold and they aren't used to cantering /loping. I was trying to canter for one of the first few times and my horse had been waiting for a long time for me to be ready and he'd had started to offer to canter when I'd get relaxed enough to move with him. After waiting so long, he was excited to finally 'go with it'. His first couple of strides were pretty large and I ended up pulling/tearing something in my thigh. Normally he stops very easily but as I said he was excited and the cantered smoothed to a nice canter but one it started to tear it pulled more each time I came down on the saddle and the pain was horrible. I ended up with terrible bruising from below the knee to over my pantie-line and at least 1/2 way around my thigh. I real piece of modern green/black and blue art-work.
Your rhythm will in the end be the control on your speed...so I've been told.
Enjoy the ride and forever progress.

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Permalink Reply by Hannah S. on January 9, 2010 at 1:59pm

Slow and small circles with lots of half-halts and release. this might sound odd-Sing a slow beat song to him while u r riding.

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