Haffey Dressage
  • Classical Dressage
  • Horse Training
  • Riding Lessons
  • Horses for Sale
  • Dressage Blog
  • Tack & Apparel for New Students
  • Dressage Glitz and Glam
    • Boarding
  • Connect with Your Horse
  • Contact
  • Rates

Canter Like a Dressage Pro

11/19/2021

1 Comment

 
Picture
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.

​

1 Comment
Pamela Nunn
11/21/2021 04:22:42 pm

I saw this article on Eventing Nation and loved how it gave me a different way to explain to students about how to influence the canter. I was wondering if you had any suggestions about how to help them with " Torpedo butt"

Reply



Leave a Reply.

    Author

    Ashley is a dressage trainer and instructor that loves to train dressage and teach lessons. 

    Archives

    March 2022
    December 2021
    November 2021
    October 2021
    July 2021
    January 2021
    March 2020
    February 2020
    January 2020

    Categories

    All

    RSS Feed

Powered by Create your own unique website with customizable templates.
  • Classical Dressage
  • Horse Training
  • Riding Lessons
  • Horses for Sale
  • Dressage Blog
  • Tack & Apparel for New Students
  • Dressage Glitz and Glam
    • Boarding
  • Connect with Your Horse
  • Contact
  • Rates