On 1/23/07, Wanda Lauscher <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote: > I'll be interested to hear responses from others who have experienced > this and succeeded in developing a controlled canter. It's a problem > with these pacey ones.
Shogun was/is pacey. We developed a nice canter last year, and even got to the point we could nail our flying changes properly about 75% of the time. We did lots of walk work. Lots of it. I hate walk work. I still hate walk work. ;) I attempted to work him over caveletti, but he would just drag his toes, knock them over, and then try to stomp the poles, so we abandoned that very early. When I was really working him 2 years ago we did most of our work on the trail. Our trails are/were pretty extreme. We had one place with over 80' of elevation change in 20 feet. Parts of that hill were almost vertical, and it really strengthened his backend. We galloped out with the 3 day eventers, and being with them we could pick up a nice rythym to his canter. I really had to ride with my seat to keep him cantering and remind him to stay collected. He'll never have a nice extended canter, but did master a slow collected canter on both leads. My conditioning/training plan way back when was arena work 2 days a week. Leg yields, Shoulder in, haunches in, etc... Really collected, hard work. We'd hack out just slow long rein walking with a little bit of trot/gait twice a week for at least 2 hours over all sorts of terrian, and 2 days a week we'd go out and gallop, canter, and ride fast and hard for at least an hour. Steph -- "Brutality begins where skill ends." "Correctly understood, work at the lunge line is indispensable for rider and horse from the very beginning through the highest levels." Von Niendorff
