 Tired of riding a runaway freight train of a horse? Is your horse heavy in your hands and on his forehand? Is your horse ignoring your half-halts? There are a lot of ways to fix your canter (like half-halts, shoulder-turns, and squares), but in this post we are just going to talk about changing your seat.
A canter is 3 beats, and you will move your seat in three ways. You have UP, DOWN, SLIDE. Sometimes it’s easier to think of it as UP, and then DOWN-SLIDE as a unit. If you jump horses, you know SLIDE, because that’s how you adjust your horse’s stride before a fence. If you ride dressage, you know UP, because that is how you collect and create more volume in the canter. If you ask for a transition down from canter to trot, you do that with your half halts coordinated during DOWN. But if you want Canter-walk like in your simple changes - ask during the UP. (Pro-tip: If you do that on the DOWN phase of your posting trot with your outside rein you will have a perfect square halt too!) Do you ever get jealous of those people riding around with a perfect and quiet collected canter that looks effortless? I sure do. I spent one summer showing a pony that the judges would put “off to the races” in the comment box and I just thought it was because she was spicy. It was actually my seat! I was pushing her too hard during the SLIDE phase of the canter and it was driving her too much. Instead, I had to learn how to ride the up, which is more of a lifting phase of the canter. As soon as I learned how to ride the UP, my horses could magically slow down and collect their canters. Funny how that works! (But obviously if you have a torpedo butt and never sit in the saddle you have to sit in the saddle and start riding the down-slide before the UP..just sayin). The bottom line...if you want to look better in your dressage test and have more influence over your horse, start riding the UP phase of your canter.
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 More leg. More leg. More leg. It’s always about going, and we are always thinking about the forward and the up. But the funny thing is, a lot of your dressage test is judged based on your transition DOWN, especially the more advanced you get. So, how do you ask your horse to transition down? Can you verbalize it?
A really good halt halt comes with impeccable timing. There is NO point of applying a half-halt if your horse’s hind leg is on the ground and unable to move when you ask it to move. Good riders know how to feel and ask for their half-halt at the right time to be effective. At a very basic level your trot to walk or trot to halt is going to happen on the down phase of your posting trot. This means you half-halt with your outside shoulder and hand and in those moments before the transition when you are sitting in your trot. To ask your horse to trot from the canter you ask on the down phase of the canter. Your canter has three phases that are up, down, and then slide. If you want a gorgeous canter to trot transition in front of the judge in your training level dressage test you need to apply the halt halt during the down phase of your canter. If you are schooling second level and want to start your simple changes you have to apply the half-halt on the UP phase of your canter to achieve the perfect timing for canter-walk transition. It's not an all at once and hold thing either, it's a 2 or 3 strides out start asking and releasing in the UP phase only and by the third time you have transitioned. So next time you ride your horse instead of thinking about OMG i’m stopping...think more like a dressage rider and be specific about when and how much pressure you use to stop. |
AuthorAshley is a dressage trainer and instructor that loves to train dressage and teach lessons. Archives
March 2022
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